Christine Quintana is the powerhouse behind Stationary: A Recession-Era Musical, the exciting new show that is set to indie rock the Vancouver theatre circuit next week. Born in Hollywood, California, and raised in Vancouver, BC, Christine is an alumnus of UBC’s prestigious acting program. She has acted in numerous Vancouver plays: Saint Joan, The Glass Menagerie, Of Mice and Men, and the LEAP Reading Series, just to name a few. Christine directed the very popular, The Best, Man which showed at the 2012 Fringe Festival. She has also written three plays, Stationary being the third and latest. Christine is also the co-creator of Delinquent Theatre, an indie theatre company that hopes to challenge the Vancouver theatre scene. At a strikingly young age, her achievements are nothing short of inspiring for young artists and especially young women. With Stationary, Christine tackles the dashed hopes of millenials in today’s ruthless economy, via rich helpings of music and comedy. While in Barrie, Ontario, Christine chatted with us to let us in on the secrets behind her multifaceted career and about her passionate plans for contributing to the arts scene in Vancouver.
Stationary opens on the 21st of April. How are you dealing with all the excitement and anticipation?
We are having an amazing time in Barrie and way too much fun in my hotel room right now. It is all incredibly exciting. It is an amazing group of people who are all just good friends. To get to do this kind of thing together is pretty much a dream come true.
The play is about the challenges that “the millenials” face today. How screwed do you think millenials are? Is there a way out for them?
Many of the characters in Stationary went to university, got a degree, had a vision of what they were going to do and then, following the crash in 2008, the jobs that were supposed to be available to them were just not there. As baby boomers started working longer it meant that everyone coming out of university was waiting longer to join the workforce. The characters in Stationary didn’t envision themselves in jobs like this.
But of course there is hope. This is not a situation unique to just millenials. In any person’s life things go the way they are planned sometimes and sometimes they don’t. Everyday you have to ask, what do I do now? What is available to me? How to I find myself? How can I build a happy life for myself? For me personally it has been a life-long journey. You hold the keys and no one is going to do it for you.
Tell us about Delinquent Theatre and your involvement in it.
I founded Delinquent Theatre with Laura MacLean. We met at theatre school at UBC. We liked making the same kind of art. It started out as a way for emerging artists like us to have a place to push ourselves as artists, without waiting for professional gigs to come along. We wanted to take our careers into our own hands. Over the years we have become more serious about it. We want Delinquent Theatre to be a place for Canadian artists to tell their stories. To explore, not so much published scripts, but original works that are about us and about where we live.
You are an actor, a director and a playwright. In Stationary will you be showcasing your musical talents as well?
Yes, everybody in the show is an actor but we also sing and play instruments. The cast is the band. There are instruments hidden all over the set. As the numbers unfold, the instruments come out. I play the ukulele and the drums, and I sing in the show. It’s like the ultimate rock band. We have nine people playing cello, violin, bass, guitar, ukulele, trombone, trumpet -you name it. Michelle Cutler, who is another friend of mine from theatre school, wrote the music. She is an incredibly talented musician and composer. She will be going to NYU to study musical theatre composition soon, which is huge. Each song is a fantasy sequence. It is a look into the heart and mind of the character that leads it. We start with a pop punk song, we have ragtime musical theatre music, we have a rap song, classic indie rock, a folk ballad. No matter what music you like there will be a song for you in Stationary!
What was the writing process like for Stationary? What was the inspiration behind it? How did the characters come to you?
The first time we performed it, it was part of a ten-minute play festival. It was set in a parking lot in downtown Vancouver. It had four songs. I was thinking about people coming into the parking garage at 5 o’clock after work, and looking for their cars, wondering where they were going and what they were thinking. All the characters are inspired a little by each of us. I wrote these parts for everybody to play to our strengths and to also challenge us.
Tell us about the cast of the play.
As it happens most of the actors went to theatre school together. The four girls in the show all graduated together from UBC’s acting program. Bryan, who wrote the rap lyrics, is mostly the director but he also acts. Anton has been a friend of mine and we did a production of Rent together. Then we have three additional performers who play interns in the office, but they are actually musicians. They all belong to super successful indie rock bands. For some, it is their first time being in a play and they are doing an awesome job.
Humor comes very easily to you. Do you have to try when writing jokes and comedies? Can we expect comedy in the show?
Thank you very much! The show is very funny. The doom and gloom around the prospects of young people is one thing but you still have to get up everyday and be a part of the world. The characters are funny and the choreography and music have a comedic flair. Writing comedy is really difficult. Good comedy comes from honesty. My character Brita, is so dark and she is hurting so badly. Her comedy is wild and quick and judgmental. It comes from a place of pain. Millennials try to joke everything away. Most of the plays I write are comedies with a dark undertone and have a serious message underneath it.
Staging a play sounds like the most fun activity in the world. Especially an upbeat project like Stationary. Is it as fun as we imagine it to be? Or can it get stressful?
It is tremendously stressful. There is not a lot of money in the arts available to us. For example, on opening night last night, we found out that our last grant was successful. That means the difference between losing money and breaking even. It took a year and a half to put this show together. Arts funding in Canada has remained the same since 2008 despite the inflation. I spend many hours looking at spreadsheets, budgets and graphs, and organizing fundraisers to make sure everyone can actually get a decent wage and pay their rent.
How easy or difficult is it being a woman in theatre? Are there still challenges in getting your opinions taken seriously?
The men that I work with are fantastic but most of the artistic directors and decision makers are still men. A study done by the Playwrights Guild of Canada showed that only 23% of Canadian-written plays were written by women. I don’t feel it all the time, but it is super unusual that our production is written by a woman, produced by a woman and composed by a woman.
It is also unusual that our play has more women than men on stage. You don’t see that a lot. Diversity is a big issue in theatre right now. People that you see on stage don’t look like the people who are with you at Starbucks after the show. How do we make sure that everybody gets a part of the stage? How do we show authentically Canadian stories and make sure that they don’t just belong to the people who have always held the stage?
Seeing young people in the audience at plays is becoming more and more rare. How do you think we can get the youth back in those seats?
A lot of it has to do with changing the experience. People think that theatre is where you sit down and it’s boring and you can’t talk and move around, you can’t bring drinks into the theatre. Companies like ours are asking how we can do things differently. Can we perform in warehouses or site-specific areas? Can we let people take drinks in with them? Can we give people a chance to chill out with the artists after the show and make it a social event? Netflix is no replacement for live theatre. I do think young people are craving that connection. It is neat that a big theatre like the Cultch picked up our show when we are just kids. We are excited to bring that energy with us and the younger audience will follow because the show is for them. The live music in this show is a big draw for the youth as well.
Why is Vancouver the best place to be an actor and a playwright?
(Laughs) I guess my cynical answer will be that it is not the best place. There are a lot of very talented artists here competing for a very small pool of available work. But that said, the theatre community is the most kind and generous community that I could hope to be a part of. There are people like Heather Redfern who is the executive director of the Cultch. She saw the potential in our show almost before we did, and gave us this opportunity. We also help each other. We go to each other’s fundraisers and go to each other’s shows. We bring our friends because it’s a hard life that we’ve chosen. And it is better together.
What are your future projects?
My play Selfie will be touring high schools all of next year so I am excited about that. Selfie came after Stationary. It is a Théâtre la Seizième production, a French language theatre company in Vancouver. I wrote it in English and they translated it into French. It is about a sexual assault that happens at a party between two friends. It is about consent and about our definition and understanding of rape.And my company is developing a new play called Quick Bright Thing by Chris Cook, a local playwright. He has written a beautiful piece about a family having a family weekend but mental health and fertility issues come up through it. Our violinist Molly Mackinnon, came to us with a multidisciplinary music, dance, theatre piece, so we are going to jam and see what comes up. l will also be back hitting the auditions now, as this is the time when everything comes up. Acting is my number 1love for sure, but I am so grateful that playwrighting and producing came into my life.
How do you stay inspired?
I take inspiration anywhere I can hear people’s voices. Who is on the bus with me? Who lives in my neighborhood? Who looks me in the eye when I walk down the street? I am also really inspired by the internet as a platform where people can connect, debate and engage with each other. Reading the comments on a newspaper article exposes how innately self-absorbed we are but also curious.
What can the normal Vancouverite do to support theatre in the city? Perhaps a starving student?
I would say take a chance. Grab the Georgia Straight for example and look at their theatre listings. Pick a company you have never heard of before. Bring some friends with you and make a night of it. It is not expensive. Most plays are under $20. So you could have two beers at a stupid pub or you could go on an adventure that might lead you to a warehouse or to a storefront and it won’t be like anything you’ve seen before. Support local artists and local arts. It is kind of like the Craft beer of your arts experience, and you will be rewarded for it. Call the box office. Every company has options for students and the underemployed. But we want you to come. We want you to be there no matter what!
Stationary: A Recession-Era Musical will run at the Cultch from April 21st to May 2nd. Music from the show is available for purchase at Delinquent Theatre.
Get your tickets here!