#175 - Andrew Kushnir

In this week’s episode, I sit down with Andrew Kushnir. Andrew Kushnir is an actor, director, and playwright with a keen interest in verbatim theatre. He is also playwright-in-residence at Tarragon Theatre, the creative director of Project: Humanity, and his most recent verbatim play Towards Youth: A Play on Radical Hope premiered at Crow’s Theatre this past February. In our conversation today we discuss the importance of relationships and trust in the both work he does with verbatim theatre as well as in our industry as a whole, how as a director he tries to navigate the relationship with the audience and the space a piece of theatre is being performed in, as well as the idea of “the circle” and it’s importance in how we interact with each other. We also discuss his latest play Towards Youth, that challenges of having adults portray children onstage and the important discussions around not assuming we automatically understand a young person’s experiences because we were once young, as well as how we continue to develop a meaningful relationship with audiences and where he sees this growth taking the theatre industry in the future.