Audrey Kwan, Artistic Leadership Resident 2024 (Leadership in Time of Crisis)
As I left for the NTS Leadership Residency in Montréal, I forced myself to have no expectations for the week. I had hopes (which included eating as much poutine as possible) but I sought to arrive with an open mind to embrace the process to the best of my ability. I’m an Excel-itinerary-for-vacations type of person so this was also a personal challenge for me.
My application articulated what I thought I wanted out of the experience: big conversations, guidance from other leaders, and connections with peers across the country. And for me, these things largely ended up happening. But even more importantly, I finished the week having gained what I hadn’t realized I needed more than anything else: feeling re-energized and excited about the work I do.
I returned to Toronto buzzing with ideas and new possibilities. That feeling almost completely dissipated within 48 hours. Nothing in particular happened– leadership roles are just hard. I know we hear that a lot, we know this already; but in that week coming back, I physically felt the truth of it.
I often feel guilty complaining about my job (I even feel guilty typing that but I know we all do it!). Being the Managing Director of The Theatre Centre is a dream come true in every way possible. It’s the type of role I’d been grinding towards for years using short-term contracts, volunteer positions, and internships to carve out a career in the arts. It’s an opportunity I will never regret choosing, and I am forever grateful to everyone who took a risk and made that opportunity possible.
But to be an arts leader right now feels grim. We are facing difficult challenges that require difficult decisions. The world is literally on fire and the news regularly makes me feel like we’re losing sight of our humanity. We’ve been talking about this at The Theatre Centre for a while now: it’s hard to feel hopeful about the future.
For me, one of the biggest takeaways from the residency were our conversations about what nourishes us. We spoke about the importance of identifying what those things are and finding ways to bring ourselves into those moments/actions as often as possible to remind ourselves why these stressful, overloaded jobs are still worth choosing each day.
Experiencing the art is an important part of that; but, for me personally, it’s the small quiet moments I get to witness at The Theatre Centre that feel most special. The three strangers who strike up a conversation before the show starts because they were seated together at a table. The community member whose weekly crafting at the communal café table sparked the creation of the Tuesday Makers Club. The couple who started volunteering because they moved into the neighbourhood and wanted to do something new together. The person who told me this is their first time at The Theatre Centre– they just wanted to watch the election results with a group of people.
These acts of kindness and curiosity help me feel more hopeful. They remind me that the position I hold and the organization I work for play an important role in creating a sense of community, one that we are all actively choosing to build together; and that is an enormous privilege. I think the ups and downs of leadership are unavoidable: the highs are high and the lows are low like I’ve never experienced elsewhere.
After a week of immersing myself in conversations of leadership, I don’t have a solution or strategy to “do leadership better” or make it all feel easier. I’m still figuring out what leadership means for me and (if I’m being honest) if it was easy, I don’t think I would find the work as rewarding. However, I do believe the week allowed me to understand what we are trying to accomplish at The Theatre Centre through new perspectives and from a broader context within the arts sector. I’m asking myself better questions that help me find hopeful moments and bring me back to the “why” of it all when I need it most. But the most salient “aha” of the week was a simple and clarifying realization: the work I do is meaningful, and I’m not done with it yet.
