When your artist and your marketing department are at odds (guest post by Alfred DePew) November 23, 2009

I’m a writer, a writer of fiction. Fiction contains dialogue. People talk to each other in stories. We all know that. What took me some time to realize is that the conversations going on in my head about my own life were holding me back—as a writer and in my business.

About 10 years ago, I began to transition out of college teaching jobs and into my own coaching and consulting business. And all too often in the last 10 years, the Writer in me has been in conflict with the Businessman.

Many artists are in a business directly related to the art they produce. My business has nothing to do with who I am as a writer. I love my business, and I love working on this new novella. And yet these two energies still sometimes work against one another.

I went from the academic world, which promised a marginally safe living for writers and artists, into what we call the Private Sector—a kind of free fall into the market economy. Many of my first coaching clients were in my tribe: writers, painters, actors …. I loved working with them. I still do. They understand coaching principles right away. They know they’re naturally creative, resourceful, and whole. They consistently make powerful changes in their lives and work in three to six months. And they can sustain these changes. They’re some of my favorite clients.

Again and again, I hear these artists describe the conflict between the part of them that created the work and the part of them that needs to “get the work out there.”

While still teaching English at the Maine College of Art, I began running seminars for visual artists about “marketing” but which were much more about tapping the energy of what most inspired them and speaking about what they did from that place. Here’s what I noticed. In my clients and then for myself. Or I should say selves. For there are a lot of aspects to me: painter, writer, executive leadership coach, organizational change facilitator, son, brother, lover, friend. It’s easiest to think of them as roles we play in the world and to ourselves. In every marketing seminar, I heard the lament: “But I’m an ARTIST! I hate marketing.” So I began to play THERE. How to enroll the artist in the marketing department? How to recognize the creativity in marketing? How to call it something else? Sort of like putting the castor oil in chocolate milk. It kept working—but not so well.

I began to realize that these were very different functions, needing, at times, a similar kind of energy. Marketers and sales folk ARE incredibly creative. I work with sales teams all the time, and they’re inventive beyond belief, willing to take all kinds of risks.  It’s the same kind of energy we need in the studio or the rehearsal hall. But the energy is expressed in two very different roles. So I had to hold the Writer in me as distinct from the Businessman (the guy who suits up for networking events and gets on planes and talks to other guys and women in suits)—people whom the Writer part of me sometimes mocks and disdains.

You get the picture.

And that’s how we often are with ourselves. The Artist won’t condescend to speak to anyone in the Marketing Department. The Marketers dismiss the Artist as a flake. And the Accountant isn’t even allowed in the room. The inside of our heads begins to sound like a terrible episode of the Office—without any jokes at all.

So I say invite them all onto an imaginary stage and see what they have to say to one another—see how they relate to each other or choose not to. Get curious about the unconscious agreements they seem to have made with one another. Actually have them engage in dialogue—with each other, and—most important—with you. You’ve the one in charge. What kind of agreements do you want to make with these aspects of yourself now? How might they begin to work as a team? What does the Artist need from the Marketer? And vice versa? What’s at stake? Why is it important for them to work together? What can they count on from each other and from you? And how do you want to hold each other accountable?

Take some time with this. Listen. Make some notes. And most important: follow through on the agreements you make with these figures. Do what you say you’re going to do. And see what happens when the Artist part of you and the Business part of you get the chance to collaborate.

Alfred DePew is a writer, painter, and a Life Coach. His weekly column in the Vancouver Observer is called  Just Between Us (Notes of a Migrant Cultural Worker).

Relationship Matters (Alfred’s blog)

And Twitters at:@alfreddepew

For information about facilitating inner collaborations, contact Alfred at adepew@earthlink.net or call (604) 568-3621.

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An interview with Daniel MacIvor November 2, 2009

In December, Ruby Slippers Theatre mounts a production of Daniel MacIvor’s A Beautiful View. One of five published in MacIvor’s Governor General’s Award-winning collection, I Still Love You, it runs December 4-13 at Performance Works on Granville Island, and December 16-19 at the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts in Burnaby. What makes this show unique is that MacIvor is also directing Colleen Wheeler and Diane Brown in this production.

That’s the publicist talking. Let me put the actor on.

I have been a huge fan of MacIvor’s work for many years, and I feel all giggly and star-struck that he agreed to do an interview with me. After I read his responses to my questions, I was completely blown away. Well, he is a writer, after all. But don’t take my word for it, read on….

 

RC: You’re from Nova Scotia. I grew up in Newfoundland, and I know that growing up in the Maritimes had a profound affect on the person I became. How did being from Canada’s East Coast affect the person you became?

DM: I think of myself first as a Cape Bretoner, that’s somewhat different than being from New Brunswick or even mainland Nova Scotia. I am an Islander. That is, I’m sure, something that someone from Newfoundland understands. When one is raised on an island one is always aware that the earth ends at a certain point. Especially an island like Cape Breton, small enough to circle in single day. One can walk or drive only so many miles until land stops and water begins. Then, one turns and heads in any other direction and soon enough land ends again. I imagine that instills in me a respect for endings and a perspective that I am on the earth rather than owning the earth. Also island life – a feeling of disconnectedness from the larger world – supports certain elements of old-world living like storytelling. Having been born on Cape Breton probably makes me more naturally a storyteller.

 

RC: What was the first play you ever wrote? Was it an abysmal failure, or were you proud of it?

DM: It took me many years of writing before I had an abysmal failure. I had to develop a whole bunch of expectations and an unhealthy concern for the approval of others before I could fail that profoundly. My very first play was “One Arm Free” about some kind of king character who was tied to a throne but had … you guessed it … one arm free. It was an absurdist thing influenced by “Ubu Roi” and Beckett I think. It was never produced and I’m not even sure I showed it to anyone. My first real “play” – as in people actually read it and it was produced – was called “Blue Bells” and I wrote it my first year in the theatre department at Dalhousie University in Halifax. It was based on my parents volatile/passionate relationship. My classmate Amy House and I ended up doing it in one of the school’s studios as an independent project. It was directed by my acting teacher John Dunsworth. I was a minimalist even then, the set consisted of two chairs. We went on to perform the play at the University of Cape Breton’s One Act Play Festival and it won every award they offered. Including Best Set Design. So I guess it was something to be proud of.

 

RC: Do you like to write old-school: pen-to-paper, or do you like to write on a computer?

DM: I often start on paper with notes and then move to my laptop once I have a sense of structure in place. The whole process of playwrighting feels architectural to me and the computer supports that. However these days I feel laptop writing is old-school – people are probably writing plays on iPhones now.

 

RC: Do you prefer writing to acting?

DM: I like both. Writing connects me to something more personal and acting connects me to a broader sense of humanity. In terms of acting I think I’m best with my own writing. I haven’t done a lot of theatre acting in other people’s plays. The last time was over ten years ago in a Morris Panych directed revival of Judith Thompson’s “White Biting Dog”. I think I may have rather sucked in the role actually. When I’m going through customs I identify myself as “writer”. So I guess that’s how I see myself.

 

RC: Twitch City was a brilliant show. Like all brilliant shows, it died quickly. What was your experience of working on that show?

DM: I had a great time doing Twitch. It was a family affair. Socially we were all part of the same gang, so it felt more like a theatre thing than a TV thing in terms of energy on set and around the show generally. The show was originally conceived by Don McKellar and Bruce MacDonald as a 90 minute TV movie, but the CBC convinced Don to create a one-season-only series instead. When the first season went well the CBC wanted another cycle of shows. Don didn’t want to do it again so Bruce asked me to write a treatment for a second series. I wrote up a scenario of twelve episodes where Curtis (Don’s character) and Nathan (my character) are in high school back in the 70’s and trying to get Trooper to play the high school prom. Each episode was named after a Trooper song. In the final episode we ended up having Trooper cover band play the prom. The cover band was to be played by Sloan. Don looked at the treatment and immediately agreed to write a second season on his own.

 

RC: I love the story of how you created da da kamera. All of us who are struggling to make it and produce our own work look up to you, because you made it! Do you have any words of advice?

DM: I think the best advice is Don’t Make Money Your God. If you worry about money, money will become a problem. Don’t worry about money. Just do it. (I think I said that before Nike.)

 

RC: I love blogging. How did you get into blogging, and what are your thoughts on it?

DM: Blogging keeps me grounded. Also, I love photography and since I use a photograph with each post the blog means I’m always looking for photographs as I move through my day. I try to blog every day and it forces me to consider how to talk about what I’m doing. For the most part I blog only about work related stuff. And I try to keep it as positive as possible. If I see a show I don’t particularly like I won’t usually blog about it. There’s enough negative shit out there.

 

RC: Many of your plays are set in surreal other-worlds. Can you say a little about why that is?

DM: Theatre is a surreal other-world already. I’m just using the truth of the medium.

 

RC: What are your thoughts on Vancouver?

DM: When I was first in Vancouver in the mid-80’s – (I was going to move there – it was for “love” – never do that) – I remember being absolutely confounded about why people would drink decaf-cappuccino and then go running. Now I drink decaf-soy-lattes and go to the gym five times a week – Vancouver was twenty years ahead of me. One of the things I love about Vancouver is how light and dark it is at the same time. The brutality of Hastings and Main up against the beauty of Stanley Park. This kind of juxtaposition is a reality of life on earth and what a real city is made of.

 

RC: What is A Beautiful View about, and what inspired you to write it?

DM: A Beautiful View is a love story about friendship. I wrote the play as a response to how we have become so comfortable with labeling ourselves and our relationships, even when those labels are restricting.  The star of the play really is the friendship between the two women, that means that beyond everything else it’s all about what the actors bring to the play.  I’m very excited about working with Diane and Colleen – I’ve been a fan of them both for some time.

Diane Brown and Colleen Wheeler. Photo credit: Tim Matheson

 

RC: Why should people come and see A Beautiful View?

DM: Because it will make you laugh and remind you of the exquisite sadness of being.

 

For more information on Daniel, or to read his blog, visit his website.

For more information on A Beautiful View, visit the Ruby Slippers Theatre website.

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Blog success August 28, 2009

At the risk of sounding “boasty,” I wanted to share something with you.

As you know, I went on vacation for two weeks at the end of July and beginning of August. During that time, I didn’t put up one post, in fact, I don’t think I logged into my WordPress account at all. I was, after all, on vacation!

When I came home and looked at my blog stats (not that I’m addicted, or anything), I expected to see a straight line across the bottom. I expected that basically no one had visited my blog, because I hadn’t been putting up fresh posts.

Imagine my surprise and happiness when I saw this:

The period of my vacation is the part on the left, from the beginning until August 14, when I put up my first post after coming home. Not bad. In fact, not terribly different than my “normal” stats.

I’ve been committed to putting up three posts a week, now since October 2008, and this is where I am happy to say, I am really starting to see it paying off.

Additionally, I am so grateful to you readers for your amazing and insightful comments. There have been more of them than usual lately, and I wanted to thank you. You’re awesome, and it gives me a charge every day when I read them.

There are lots of things in store for the fall. I’m working on lots of guest posts with people, interviews with interesting people, and I am, more than likely, going to migrate my blog over to my website, so that I can take advantage of all of WordPress’ excellent add-ons and widgets.

So, continue to stay tuned! (and thanks again.)

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Failing in an upwards direction July 1, 2009

I’ve been thinking about failure a lot lately.

Falling up stairs?

Yes, yes, before all of you positive thinkers jump all over me with your law of attraction stuff, just hear me out.

I’m a fairly-well educated, reasonably intelligent person. However, at this point in my life, it’s tricky for me to learn in a formal way (like attending classes). That leaves me a couple of methods for learning new things: books, the internet, and failure.

At any given time, I’m usually reading a couple of books. I really got a lot out of The Four Hour Workweek, and I’m halfway through The E-Myth. Next will probably be Nichecraft.

The problem with books, is, they take a while to write and get published. And by the time they are published, things could have changed, especially in this crazily-fast-paced internet world. So, a great deal of my learning takes place these days online. E-books, e-courses, and a Google Reader full of great RSS feeds like CopyBlogger, TwitTips, and IttyBiz.

That leaves failure.

If you’re willing, failure can be your greatest teacher. Okay, so you screwed up. Intentionally or not, what went wrong? How can you change it so that it doesn’t happen the next time? Maybe that won’t work, either, but keep trying until you get it right.

This guy, Albert Einstien (famous for his hairstyle),  once defined insanity as: “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” I understand he may have known something about failure. And success. And most importantly, success through failure.

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Lessons learned from Wine country… May 25, 2009

Posts have been a bit sporadic this past week. Part of the reason for that is because I took a few days off last week (and

The Naramata Bench

by took a few days off, I mean, I took my laptop and blackberry with me, and still ended up doing a couple of hours of work each day–come on summer!), and my sweetie and I headed up to Penticton for some exploring and wine tasting.

If you visit the “Naramata Bench”, just a 10-minute drive from Penticton, there is a long and spectacular road with some two-dozen or so wineries. It is literally one winery after another, and some of BC’s best-know wines come from this region.

Kettle Valley Winery

We first wanted to visit the Joie Winery, but they didn’t have a wine shop, or tastings. We then ended up at  Kettle Valley. For $4 each, we got to taste an ounce of four different kinds of wines–two red, and two white. We didn’t love the wines enough to buy one, but we did participate in a Gewurztraminer slushy, which was extremely civilized on a hot day.

Detail of the Therapy sign

Next up: Therapy Vineyards. Located just up the hill from Kettle Valley, the experience couldn’t have been more different. Kettle Valley’s tasting room was a converted garage. It was a nice a garage, but it was still a garage. Therapy had a specially-built wine-tasting room and store. Tastefully decorated with a long tasting bar, here we got to sample a flight of 7 wines for $3. Therapy uses lots of clever names for its wine–Freudian Sip, Super Ego, and thier most popular, Pink Freud. The gal who poured our wines was able to tell us all about them in a very conversational way, without sounding like she was reading it off of a script. And she was a genuine wine enthusiast herself, telling us about her collection. The experience was very, very positive, and we left with bottle in tow.

At Therapy Vineyards

So, why am I writing a blog post about wine tasting on a blog that deals with business in the arts? Because these three wineries were stunning examples of enterprises that we can all learn from.

Joie is quite a successful, critically-acclaimed winery. My feeling is, they think that they don’t need to be so open to their clientele. They feel that business is good, they have a beautiful website and successful sales. For them, that’s enough. At Kettle Valley, I felt like they were maybe just going through the motions. You know: “you should really have a tasting room. It can help to boost sales.” But it felt quite cold and mechanical, without heart. Therapy was doing it right. They were open, conversational, and really let us see behind the scenes. And the result was, we bought in (literally). I will recommend this wine to my friends, I would highly recommend you visit the winery if you are ever in the area, and, in a sea of labels at the liquor store, that one will stand out for me because of its clever marketing.

I know you hear me talk ad nauseum about how all arts businesses should be involved with social media. The reason why is because it helps your clientele to get to know “the real you.” And when they do, they will buy in. And beyond that, become your ambassador. My experience at Therapy was so positive, I now consider myself an ambassador for them. All they are out is some employees’ salaries and 7 ounces of wine. And how much business will they get in return? That’s the hard part to prove, but I can guarantee you it will be more than the business that Joie or Kettle Valley will get from me.

Oh–and one more thing I learned–I apparantly get quite chatty after tasting 7 different wines.

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Jessies, Jessies, Jessies! May 20, 2009

Yesterday was a big day for theatre in Vancouver–the Jessie nominations were announced. The Jessie Richardson Theatre Awards are like our version of Broadway’s Tonys. Or our version of Toronto’s Doras. Well, you get the idea… it’s kind of a big deal.

There are two major categories of awards: Large Theatre and Small Theatre. Large Theatre is for the companies that have theatres and produce seasons, like the Arts Club, Bard on the Beach, and the Playhouse. Small Theatre is where I work–indie companies that don’t have a theatre to call home, but often produce seasons, and rent their spaces.

Ruby Slippers leads that pack with 8 nominations. I worked on Life Savers a couple of months ago, and the production design was particularly stunning, so it’s fitting that they got nominations for Sound, Lights, and Set. Colleen Wheeler’s tortured France earned her a nomination for Lead Actress, and both Patti Allan (who played her mother) and Naomi Wright (who played her sister) picked up Best Supporting nominations. Kevin McNulty also garnered a nom in the Lead Actor category.

Leaky Heaven Circus, whose antigone undone is currently getting rave reviews by the critics, got two noms for last year’s Bone In Her Teeth. Sasa Brown is nominated in the supporting actress category (she deserves it for the baby watermelon scene alone) and Stephan Bircher for Lights.

Itsazoo picked up its very first Jessie nomination, in the category of Outstanding Costume Design. Meredith Canby is nominated for Death of a Clown. Not bad for a young company not yet out of its twenties, and only one year in Vancouver.

Congratulations to all. If you’re in Vancouver, and you’ve never been, check out the Jessie Awards on June 15. It’s a lot of fun, and it’s the one night of the year when the theatre community truly gets together. There’s a lot of love. And drinking.

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How much is production value worth? April 22, 2009

On Saturday night, I went to see The Zoo Story at Second Beach (full disclosure: Itsazoo Productions are one of my

The Zoo Story at Second Beach

clients).

We, the audience, got to sit undercover in the picnic area just above the children’s playground (red firetruck, anyone?), looking out over the playing fields and the pool. Just outside the picnic area, there was a park bench, and upon this bench, the play took place. The bench was the only set, unless you include English Bay (you could do worse), no lights, no sound (unless you count the ambient noise associated with a park near a beach), and certainly no special effects.

Stripped of all of its theatrical trappings, the production was forced to get back to basics: the words and the acting. And based on that, I’d say the show was a success–Albee’s work and its execution were both very strong.

This week, I’m gearing up to work on the upcoming Leaky Heaven Circus show, antigone undone. Bone in Her Teeth, last year’s Leaky offering, was one of my favorites of last season. It offered jaw-dropping moments of pure beauty and theatricality. For example, there was a moment at the top of act two where two people were fighting drowning. The entire scene was danced behind a wave of cling-film that stretched across the stage, and was being kept constantly in motion by others offstage. In one moment, Billy Marchenski reached up and put his fist through the cling-film, creating a perfect, captured-in-time moment. It blew my mind.

I’m a theatre junkie. Like all good junkies, I want to get as much of my drug as I can, and I crave better and better quality stuff, all the time. These two productions both satisfied me, but in very different ways. For The Zoo Story, it was about executing the basics really well, and letting that be enough. For Leaky Heaven, it was about the innovation and creativity and theatricality.

What do you think? In what proportion do you like to see pretty production values and outstanding theatricality, versus well-executed basics like script and acting? I’d love to hear.

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Surviving The Culture Change February 16, 2009

This was recently forwarded to me by Mirjana Galovich, who is the director of marketing and sales for the Vancouver Museum. It is US arts philanthropy expert Diane Ragsdale’s keynote address on the subject “Surviving the Culture Change,” which she gave to the Australia Council Arts Marketing Summit held in Melbourne on 3-4 July 2008.

Here is an excerpt:

As a result of new technologies, generational shifts and economic divides, changing demographics, increasing diversity in cities and town across America, a trend towards anti-intellectualism, increased competition for people’s leisure time, cuts in funding for the arts in K-12 education, the decline in arts coverage in newspapers, and many other forces, we are seeing a profound shift in the interrelated relationships between people, space, time, and art, and changes in the ways that people create, consume, commune, and communicate. This is the culture change to which I am referring…

…podcasts can save us? How about Facebook? I keep having this picture in my mind of arts organizations huddled up, frantically flipping through some metaphorical 21st century audience development playbook, trying to figure out the perfect combination of plays that will win over younger audiences: Should we get rid of subscriptions? Stream podcasts? Produce videos for YouTube? Hire DJs and VJs to play in the lobby after the show? Have a MySpace page? Text our patrons on their cell phones? Remake the season brochure? Host some sort of amateur art competition?

Maybe! But we can’t answer these questions until we answer some more fundamental questions. Yes, we need to bring our marketing into the 21st century; but first, we need to bring our missions into the 21st century. This is less a failure to sell well, and more a failure to see well – a failure to see that our communities have changed, and that art and artists have changed, and that we, perhaps, as institutions that exist to broker a relationship between the two (communities and artists) have not changed in response.

What I love about this keynote, is that she is talking about all good marketing, which is, at its very basis, simply relationship marketing. It’s always been that way. But if we are to survive the shrinking of the traditional media and the aging of our subscription audience and the fact that we are in a recession, we have to start thinking about relationship marketing in different ways. If we think of it as building a community.

You can read Diane’s entire keynote here. And tune in to the blog on Wednesday for some ideas that theatres around the world are implementing to make their work connect more with their audience.

I will be participating in a conference call on March 2, at 9 am PST, 1 pm EST, with The Prosperous Artists, Rosh Sillars and Dean La Douceur. Feel free to phone in with your questions (206 202 3568). We will be discussing the topic of relationship marketing. The conference call will be available for download as a podcast afterwards.

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Stubmatic–a new online ticketing option January 16, 2009

If you are independently producing theatre in Vancouver, your options for ticketing are limited.

For those starting out, I’ve often seen producers get a dedicated phone line with voicemail. The outbound message gives info about the show, and people can leave a message for a reservation. They depend upon family and friends to manage the box office at the door. This is certainly the cheapest option, but, unable to actually sell tickets online or over the phone, there is nothing to keep people from just not bothering to show up.

Next up, there is Tickets Tonight. Since Festival Box Office closed their doors a couple years back, Tickets Tonight is pretty much the only game in town (with the exception of Ticketmaster, which is where the big boys play). Tickets Tonight, although it may be the only game in town, is not a bad deal. Your show gets listed on their website, and people can visit their physical ticket booth, which is conveniently located inside Tourism Vancouver. They can accept credit cards, and all the math is done for you. As well, there is no fee to the producer–the fees are paid by the patron. The customer service charge ranges from $2.14 for a ticket under $10, up to $4.28 for a $40 ticket.

Enter the new kid on the block: Stubmatic. Developed by a software company

in the UK, Stubmatic uses PayPal technology to sell tickets online. There is no customer service fee (although if you want to charge one, you can), and plans start at as little as $9/month for events that seat up to 250.

Jon Baker, the CEO of Vibrant Apps, who created Stubmatic, had this to say about it:

There are several benefits to small theatre producers using our service. Firstly, we offer them a massive cost saving over our competition. Even though some of our competition don’t charge any monthly fees they will add upwards of a 10% booking fees on top of the face value of each ticket sold. We only charge a flat monthly fee with no hidden costs. In addition we provide our users with the option to charge their own booking fee (per ticket or transaction). They can use this to cover the cost of our monthly fee as well as any PayPal fees they may incur, for example. The second benefit is that we are a small company and pride ourselves on being accessible and able to help our customers and we try to react quickly as possible to feature & support requests. Additionally we provide our users a range of tools to help market their event. These include “Buy Now” buttons that they can put on other websites to link to their box office and we also do behind the scenes search engine optimisation to improve their event page’s search engine ranking. If any of your users have a MySpace page we offer a MySpace application which can be installed. This displays / links to all events they are selling directly on their MySpace profile.

The only drawback of Stubmatic, that I can see, is that, because it’s PayPal, it charges in US dollars. Which, for some people, might be enough to keep them from using it. However, Stubmatic offers a free, no-strings-attached trial period. If you go to http://www.stubmatic.com/info/register you can sell up to three events (maximum 500 tickets per event) for free.

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Inside the (UBC) Actor’s Studio with… Kim Cattrall January 12, 2009

Last week, I got a once-in-a-lifetime chance, and by golly, I took it!

Jerry Wasserman and Kim Cattrall (photo by Martin Dee)

Billed A Conversation with Kim Cattrall, this was, in actuality, an hour-long Inside the Actor’s Studio-like interview of Kim with Jerry Wasserman, head of the Theatre Department at UBC.

Jerry started out by welcoming the Courtenay-born, BC native back home, they talked a little about her home life, growing up on Vancovuer Island. She then talked about her professional training at both RADA and AMDA, and her brief career (and first professional Equity gig) in lunch theatre, here in Vancouver. She said it never occurred to her to not work here–she was from here, why would she want to leave?

Finding work was challenging, however, so her path eventually took her to Toronto. While working in theatre in Toronto, she was offered a seven-year contract at one of the big film studios. Feeling like she needed to learn more about film acting, she saw this opportunity as an apprenticeship (and thought it would get her back to New York, where she had a close circle of friends). Instead, the studio sent her to LA, but Jaimie Lee Curtis was there to show her the ropes.

And when it came to Sex and the City, she turned down the role of Samantha Jones several times. She said the part scared her. But then she remembered a conversation she had once had with Jack Lemmon, who said he always took roles that scared him–that meant there was learning in that role. She said they all knew that the show was going to be magic from the first read-through.

She spoke about her three books and the documentary she has made, all on the topic of sexuality. She regaled us with ‘backstage stories’ of plays she’s been in, and encouraged us to “take care of yourselves and eat good food.” She also encouraged the audience, primarily made up of students from the UBC Theatre and Film departments, to “listen to your gut.”

For me, there was one thing she said that I took away and prized above all others. An audience member asked her if she thought that there were starting to be better roles for women, and especially women ‘of a certain age’ out there. And she simply replied: “that’s why I started my own production company.”

Oh–and it looks good for a sequel to the Sex and the City movie.

You can listen to the entire conversation with Kim Cattrall and Jerry Wasserman here.

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