The Cultch's Heather Redfern wins national theatre innovation award
National Theatre School’s Gascon-Thomas prize goes to a Canadian artist who has brought a wave of change to their field
THE CULTCH executive director Heather Redfern has just received the 2023 Gascon-Thomas Award for Innovation, given out by the National Theatre School.
Awards are bestowed each year by the school to one Anglophone and one Francophone artist in two categories in innovation and lifetime achievement. The innovation prize is presented to a Canadian theatre artist who has brought about a wave of change within their field. The nominee is selected for their ability to generate new ideas and for their efforts to improve upon current practices in making theatre—especially with an eye to social commitment and accessibility.
Redfern, who attended the National Theatre School’s design program in the 1980s, talked about her commitment to make different communities feel “welcome and safe” walking through The Cultch doors in the 16 years she’s helmed the venue.
Redfern has overseen everything from the launch of the Femme Festival, which stages works for fierce female-identifying artists over the next month, to a festival that integrated drag, Indigenous, and cabaret arts.
One of the key things Redfern cited as innovation in her acceptance speech was, believe it or not, bathrooms at The Cultch. Said Redfern:
“One of my favourite ways of nerding out about what it takes to be genuinely inclusive is to obsess about bathrooms. As trans and gender fluid people have become increasingly out, proud and visible in much of in much of our society. Bathrooms became the battlefield.
“Our priority at the Cultch was making sure the trans and non-binary people on our staff and in our audiences felt safe, so the first thing we did was cover our gendered washroom signs with Universal Washroom signs. This did not work. Femme patrons did not always feel safe walking out of a stall to find a cis-man standing outside it. And I can’t tell you the number of cis-women who walked into the washroom with urinals and turned around and walked right back out again. Our goal of making everyone feel welcome and safe was not achieved for all the good intentions.
“So instead, we put up a sign on each gendered washroom door indicating explicitly that trans and gender fluid people were welcome. This was not enough. It solved the problem of cis- discomfort, but did not feel truly inclusive.
“So we listened to each of these groups about what they needed to feel safe, and they gave the same answer, a real universal washroom, with private stalls. One where the doors go from the floor to the ceiling and sinks that were in a genuinely public space.”
“I challenge you to create the future of theatre with passion, honesty, trust, risk, fierce love and hard work,” Redfern further told the NTS students in the audience.
Redfern previously worked as executive director of the Greater Vancouver Alliance for Arts and Culture, artistic producer for Edmonton’s Catalyst Theatre in Edmonton, and as a freelance theatre designer.
"Heather has dedicated her career to serving a diverse group of artists and audiences, she is particularly interested in the creation of new forms and in putting creative teams together that are working outside of their comfort zones," the National Theatre School posted on its site. "Working locally, nationally and internationally, she believes in the transformational powers of the arts."
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