Playwright Profile: Julie Golosky
Julie Golosky is a performing artist and writer in Edmonton who I was delighted to speak to about theatre, art and food, glorious food. Her writing will be showcased in the Elementary shows of the Awakening festival: Stone Stew and Oh The Actors and Farmers Should be Friends. See it in the Eva O. Howard on May 16 and May 18, 2022
What do you do? How did you get started?
I’ve been in Edmonton theatre since the late 80s. I had my beginnings in Fort MacMurray at Keyano Theatre that was an incredible foundation. People from all over the country came to do theatre there, people even at amateur level from the UK, from Australia and it was phenomenal. That was my training and then I did. I did two music degrees at the University of Alberta and I had been working in theatre in different areas: acting, singing, direction, music direction. When it comes to theatre I think, if you’re going to be involved, you have to know a little bit of everything. I’ve written plays, music, songs, and for collective productions like the Fringe.
Why playwriting?
Why not playwriting? To tell you the truth, what got me into theatre was that I wanted to have fun. I wanted to hang out with fun people and just have fun. That’s basically been my Modus Operandi: I just want to see what happens so a lot of what I’ve made has been through experimenting. Through someone asking “hey, you want to try this?” and it’s an opportunity and you never turn down an opportunity, ever.
What keeps you writing? How do you deal with writer’s block?
Well I haven’t really thought about it but honestly, I try not to think about it. I’m kind of a jack of all trades, master of none and because I do so much and I have so many connections in the theatre and music community here in Edmonton, there’s always been these little things dropped in my lap. You have these conversations with people and they plant seeds for you. I tend to do this with my teaching too. I’m as good as the ideas that come my way and I think a lot of people motivate me. A lot of ideas from other people inspire me and that’s what’s so fun about working in the [Awakening] group, the cast inspires me and that excites me. I tend to not even think about writer’s block because I always have to be doing something or I go crazy.
What does your process look like?
Not overthinking it or having any expectations [is really important], you have to be open to whatever happens. If you try to fix it, if you try to mold it too much it’s not going to be as good as if you just let it be and let it evolve on its own. You as the writer have to be a liaison between the thought process and the paper. And if you’re having a hard time trying to make something work or fit, I find this with songwriting too, just walk away from it, give it time. If you’re forcing it too much, it’s not going to be as good. Almost always, there’s a different creation than what I expected in the beginning. Try to let it evolve, for lack of a better word, organically. The next part is the edits, and all of that can be time consuming but in terms of the structure, the foundation, the through line, that will be in place and then the editing comes in. That’s the hard part for me.
If you could describe your show in three words, what would they be?
Food, glorious food!
Why is Victoria School the right place for your work?
Vic has an incredibly long standing reputation for being open minded and welcoming to ideas and people. I did a project way back-- you probably would have all been babies-- it was a film project called Dare and I was an actor. That was my real taste of Vic at that time, like “wow these kids are phenomenal!” And they were all so open and you don’t find that in the jaded professional realm where everyone is either afraid to try something new or clamping down on the formula because they think that’s the best. Vic was just so open minded, it’s really cool. It’s a blessing that place.
