Talking to Julia Haynes about People House Theatre

On a cold January evening, I met Julia Haynes at The Red Brick Café. Julia is the Artistic Director of People House Theatre, which seeks to build a home for the Guelph theatre scene by producing original shows with emerging artists.

People House Theatre also runs a monthly event called Friday Night Writes, which lets people sign up as “writers” or “actors” at the door. The writers get half an hour to write a two-person scene or a monologue, and then the actors perform the scripts that they are handed. The event recognizes how alienating the creative process can be and gives people the opportunity to write something, and have others appreciate it and take part in it right away.

The Red Brick was packed with people enjoying hot drinks and lively conversations. Julia and I had our drinks and were all set to dive into an enjoyable conversation of our own.

Mirali Almaula: What can you tell me about your theatre background?

Julia Haynes: I did musicals growing up in my hometown, at the Oshawa Little Theatre. And then I graduated from Humber’s theatre performance program in Toronto, and that was fantastic because we focused on devised work and creating your own. The whole idea that the easiest way to get work is to make it yourself, that’s always been very deeply ingrained in me. […] And then […] I came to Guelph. And by second semester I was a theatre major instead of the English major I set out to be.

M.A.: Great. So when did you come up with the People House Theatre idea?

J.H.: So the theatre program at Guelph does a series of one-act plays at the beginning of every semester, and I was in a play that Will Wellington had written. It was such a great script and it got kind of muddied a little bit in the production of the thing. […] I met with Danielle Fernandes […] and we got talking about plays we’ve done and were like, “We should do Hour Glass again.” So we contacted Will […] and it kind of snowballed from there. It just made sense to form a little company and try to get a few projects off the ground.

M.A.: “People House Theatre,” the name, how’d you come up with it?

J.H.: It was not organic at all. We would open books to random pages and just read out things. Will had brought up People House from a—I think it was maybe a Dr. Seuss book? It was like, a little mouse in a people house […] but looking back at the big long list we had, it jumped out, because […] that’s all you need for a theatre: you need people, and you need a space, and that’s a theatre.

M.A.: So do you have a specific space that you use, or do you pick locations based on what the work requires?

J.H.: So, we normally try to work out of The Making-Box space. Our plan was to do Bloodletters there but the play got bigger than the space and we needed more tech. And the school […] presented itself as a very great option for us; the space was free [and] it had everything we needed. But ideally, we would like to distance ourselves, I think, from the university just because we don’t want to be a university production company.

M.A.: Right—for the whole community.

J.H.: Exactly.

M.A.: So you said you do workshops—could you tell me more about those?

J.H.: Not workshops in the sense of someone coming in and instructing. Our focus is trying to […] bring people together through theatre and try to help people make connections with other theatre artists in the city.

M.A.: Okay, so you’ve answered who makes up People House for me. Do each of you have certain duties, or certain areas of interest?

J.H.: I am technically the Artistic Director (slash Producer), and Danielle is usually Tech Director. Josh Anderson-Coats works with us as well, as our publicity man. Will has taken a step back. He was sort of our playwright in residence. But he’s focusing on other things now, which is great for him and good for us too because […] you don’t ever want to be a company that produces only one person’s work when you’re trying to be a company for the community.

M.A.: You mentioned that you want the community to be involved. So if someone was interested in developing a play or a devised work with you, who are you looking to work with and how do they get involved with People House Theatre?

J.H.: We’re looking, honestly, to work with anyone who has ideas. It doesn’t have to be a script. Just, “Hey, I’m thinking about this and what do you think?” Obviously, we want to participate from time to time but […] we have a lot of really great talent in Guelph—I love this city. So I think for other people that love this city and want to do what they love, in the city they love, I’m hoping we can be a touchstone for them to help springboard their ideas.