TL;DR If you want to support me and my work, this is the place to do it. $5 to $5.60 a week only, please.

Who I Am

Chances are that if you're here, you already know me in some way. So let me just break down the essentials for you: I'm an artist, raised in Toronto, Canada, and I've lived most of my adult life in Yokohama, Japan. I trained as an actor, playwright, and director at Toronto's Young People's Theatre and York University. Not finding a lot of employment as an actor (big surprise) and wanting more artistic control of the projects I worked on, I started my own theatre company in 1998 and between 2001 and 2003 I produced 10 shows in two seasons of theatre. In 2003, I fell in love and moved to Japan, ostensibly for a couple of years, and ended up staying there for 20.

I've had regular jobs over the years: I've worked as an IT guy, a preschool teacher's assistant, a door-to-door charity campaigner, and a university instructor. I've worked at non-profits, small businesses, and a multinational. During all that time, I continued to create theatre and other art and became more and more invested in the process of art, rather than the product. What I value in artistic creation is the effort, often collaborative, of bringing a new piece into the world.

What I Do

I create art, primarily theatre, but I also practice, in decreasing order of competence: photography, podcasting, poetry, and plunking on the guitar.

My philosophy of theatre has changed so much in the last 20 years. If you knew me in university, then 1) I'm sorry, I was kind of an intense person and a bit of a jerk, and 2) you know that I was trying to create "shows", and I was concerned about shows as products. What I've learned about myself since then is that what I love about art, and theatre specifically, is the process itself. Theatre is about collaboration, and, yes, there is ego in it, but everyone's egos combined is much more thrilling than just mine. The magic of doing outdoor Shakespeare (when I still thought of myself as just an actor) wasn't the show; it was the amazing people who came together to create it and how we bonded into one theatre-making mind. I didn't see it at the time. I love people. I love the process. And my theatre work is now focused on both of those things. And I'm so much prouder of that work than of anything I made before.

Through YTG, I also mentor emerging artists. I've started a program where young people come from all over the world to work on theatre in Japan with me. They don't do it because I'm some wise guru, but simply because I provide them with the opportunity and the space to try, to succeed, or to fail. Since 2007, a few dozen artists have allowed me the privilage of watching them change and grow and discover things about themselves and their art. There are not a lot of places that will take a new artist and allow them this much freedom. My design interns run their departments and actually design things. My acting interns play major roles in my productions. My directing interns get to try running the rehearsal room and directing. No one fetches coffee. They learn from me and the other experienced artists, and I learn from them. That's not a sentimental, meaningless, statement: sometimes the interns have training that I don't and they literally teach me things. It's wonderful!

What else? I challenge my audiences. People come to my shows because they know that they will see something different and interesting, and will maybe have to rethink things. I am much more concerned with that than whether something is "good", whatever that means.

For money, these days, I teach drama one day a week at a university to second year English Language majors who can't form a complete sentence in English. Occasionally, I land a photo shoot, either portraits or corporate events, but not as often as I would like. Last year, I helped cast and acted in a fairly big-name animated Netflix show, but that was a super rare event. I do not make a lot of money.

What I Hope to Do

I hope to make art: theatre, primarily, but also photography, podcasting, poetry, and plunking on the guitar. I hope to have the freedom to pursue the act of making art without having to worry about monetizing it. I don't want to make products; I want to put ideas, and themes, and joy, and sadness, and, well, everything into the world. I don't want to stop making things in order to pursue money. I understand that the world we live in requires these things of most people and that maybe you have given up on some things you wanted to do because you are a functioning adult.

I am not a functioning adult in this way. If this bothers you, or you don't think someone should ask anything of the world, then maybe you're not a person who should be reading this. And that is fine and a perfectly valid reason to not support my work.

The Dream

I have spent the last several years looking for a job that fits my skills. My skills are weird. Over the years, I've become a jack-of-all-trades, but master of none. However, when I've put out the call to support my work by donating to the theatre I run, there have been people who have given sizable amounts because they find value in me just doing what I do.

So I thought, why not ask the people I've known over the years, the people I've worked with, the people I've mentored, the people I've (hopefully) inspired, to support me in continuing to create with, mentor, and inspire others in a way that's positive and untouched by commerce? Maybe those people are out there, and maybe your dream can be real, but you have to ask to find out.

What I'm Asking

What I'm asking is this: if you like what I do and want me to keep creating work, donate $5 a week. If you can't afford that, then don't. Seriously. I don't want someone else who is in a precarious financial position to sacrifice some of their security for mine. I'm also not going to put anything behind a paywall for any of you. This is not a commerical request. Also, don't give me more than $5 a week*. Why? I don't want people to burn out their desire to give (to me or to others). I want I also don't want anyone, even a generous soul, to have an outsize influence on me or my work. The spirit of artistic independence is important to this project.

*If you do feel a need to be extra generous, you can donate $5.60 per week to offset card processing fees, but no more, please!

What I'm Offering

Like Cordelia in King Lear, I offer "nothing".

More specifically, this isn't a commercial enterprise. This is not a Patreon page. Supporters will get nothing extra or exclusive, other than the possible good vibes that come with supporting my work. Your support will help me continue to create work at the pace that it gets created at. I will committ to giving regular updates (roughly weekly, at least 40 weeks a year) and to release my personal work free-of-charge as it emerges (the work for YTG will be behind a ticketing system but anyone can ask me for free tickets there, whether they are supporting me here or not).

There is no merch. If I create things that can be sold (I don't do a lot of this), I might sell them, but I might also give them away.

How Much Do I Need?

At $500 CAD a week (100 supporters) I'll be able to dedicate at least one day to pursuing artistic projects. I'll document the week's work on a short podcast released on multiple platforms.

For each additional $250 (50 supporters) a week I raise, I'll be able to add one more day to artistic projects instead of chasing freelance jobs.

If I ever hit $1,250 (250 supporters), I'll be able to quit my university job, stop chasing freelancing gigs, and focus on art full time. If you do the math, you'll see that that's $53,000 CAD pre-tax income after card processing fees are deducted. I'm not planning to be a millionaire: I just want to exist as an artist, support my family, and say "yes" to mentoring and collaborating with other artists.

What Effects Will Support Have?

• Reduction of anxiety over providing for my family
• I can say yes to more projects
• I can say yes to helping people
• I'll be able to travel for projects and go to more conferences to make more connections
• I'll be able to spend part of the year in Canada and have time with my family there, particularly my mother

To get updates on what I'm doing, use the link below:

Update Podcast.