From the Artistic Director’s Chair Series – #10
“Investing in a Future Generation”
by Emily Oriold

When I graduated from the University of Waterloo, I felt ready.

My degree was wonderfully multidisciplinary. We learned every corner of the theatre. I studied performance, which was my passion, but I also learned about stage management, lighting, sound, set construction, producing, arts administration, and the countless moving pieces that make a production possible. It was an education that encouraged us to appreciate not just our own discipline, but the work of everyone around us.

In performance, I had the privilege of playing roles like Bianca in The Taming of the Shrew, Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Portia in The Merchant of Venice, and Frau Gabor in Spring Awakening. On the technical side, I worked in props, on set crew, and even in wardrobe, where I learned how to sew buttons, hem pants, and take in skirts—skills my husband and son still benefit from today.

I loved every minute of it. I thought, “Stratford here I come!”

Like most graduating students, I couldn’t wait to step into the professional world. I imagined rehearsal halls, opening nights, production meetings, and the beginning of a lifelong career in the arts.

Then graduation arrived.

And suddenly the question became…

Now what?

As naïve as this may sound, I didn’t really think about all of the other graduates that were now stepping into the industry after graduation.

Hundreds and hundreds of us across the country.

University teaches you the craft. It teaches you collaboration. It teaches you to dream big. But what it doesn’t always provide is the bridge between the classroom and a professional career.

How do you get your first audition?
What is Equity? ACTRA?
How do I find an agent?
What are commercial auditions?
Why am I not getting called back?
What do you mean I didn’t graduate from “the right school”?
How do I produce my own work?
How do you build the confidence that only comes from experience?

For many emerging artists, that bridge simply doesn’t exist. The University bubble is real and when it bursts it’s a shock to the system.

Over the years, I’ve thought about that often. And as the years went by, I was fortunate to find mentors who took me under their wing, opened doors, answered questions, trusted me, and gave me opportunities that built my confidence. Those opportunities began to shape my career.

When The Foster Festival became a reality, I knew I wanted it to be more than a producing theatre. I wanted it to become part of that missing bridge between education and a professional career. Help students in undergraduate arts programs gain professional experience BEFORE they graduate.

The Emerging Arts Worker Program is our way of building that bridge.

And how fortunate to have founded The Foster Festival in St. Catharines with Brock University right there with an undergraduate program similar to the University of Waterloo’s: a multidisciplinary program. Having Brock University just down the road made that vision possible. Before long, The Foster Festival’s Emerging Arts Worker Program was born.

The goal of the program isn’t simply to offer someone a placement or a line on a résumé. It’s to invite emerging theatre professionals into every aspect of what we do. To let them sit in production meetings. To watch how a season is built. To understand that theatre isn’t just what happens under the lights—it’s budgeting, marketing, fundraising, audience development, community partnerships, artistic planning, load-ins and outs, QtoQ, and hundreds of decisions that happen long before the audience ever finds their seats. And sometimes it happens very quickly, under tight timelines.

We are currently in the midst of our 11th season and are delighted to be working alongside another group of Emerging Arts Workers. Every season they bring fresh perspectives, infectious enthusiasm, and a reminder of why investing in the next generation matters so much.

Professional theatre is a business.
It’s an industry.
It’s a profession.

There are things you can only learn once you’re doing it.

The Foster Festival’s Emerging Arts Worker Program has become a launching pad for many emerging professionals. Alumni have gone on to work not only with The Foster Festival, but with companies across Ontario, including Carousel Players, Lighthouse Festival Theatre, Drayton Entertainment, Theatre Orangeville, and the Shaw Festival.

As a festival dedicated to celebrating Canadian stories, I believe we also have a responsibility to invest in the people who will help tell those stories in the years to come. Every established artist was once an emerging artist looking for someone to say, “Come on in. Let me show you how this works.”

The future of Canadian theatre won’t arrive by accident. It will be built by the next generation of artists, technicians, administrators, stage managers, designers, producers, and leaders. They deserve opportunities to learn alongside professionals who are willing to share what they’ve discovered along the way.

If we want our art form to thrive twenty, thirty, fifty years from now, we have to invest in it today.

Perhaps one day, one of the participants in our Emerging Arts Worker Program will be writing this very newsletter for a theatre company of their own, reflecting on the people who gave them their first opportunity.

I certainly hope so.

I’ll see you at the theatre!

Emily Oriold,
Founder & Artistic Director