A Look Inside Paprika's Strategic Planning

On March 26th, 2025 the Paprika Festival released it’s 2024-2029 Paprika Festival Roadmap which outlines the trajectory of the next few years for the company. Artist Cheyenne Scott was invited to witness this process and offers insights and reflections from the inside.

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As someone who learns best by doing, being invited to participate in Paprika’s Strategic Planning was a treat. It had been 5 years and a whole new staff since the 2018 Manifesto and it was time to do some reflecting on where the company was at currently while honouring the hard work of our predecessors. What had been accomplished so far and what still needed to be addressed? Dominique Giguère and Jed Decory from Currents Group Inc. helped us facilitate this process. They developed surveys and conducted community research to help us understand our positioning in the climate post quarantine. The whole process was several months and many many zoom meetings. At first it felt muddy and there was no clear outcome in sight. Apparently, according to Dominique and Jed this was a completely normal part of the process. They would outline the data they received and make suggestions and we would discuss with the board what felt compelling with our known experience of Paprika. At the time I was the Community Programming Producer and had been with the company for 3 years.

This experience gave me the agency to voice my thoughts and observations (believe me I have many big opinions but sometimes it’s difficult to express them and I really appreciated having the space to strengthen those muscles). I was curating and brainstorm programming at a high level with a team of supportive people. Here’s some hot tips from what I learned:

1.     The Board must be involved. This may seem obvious to some people but for me I assumed that Outgoing Executive Producer Keshia Palm, and General Manager Julia Dickson, and I would be doing most of the labour and then presenting our findings to the Board. When in fact, the Board needs to take the reins and be involved so that they have ownership over the strategic planning. Especially, at a place like Paprika where the staff are also young emerging leaders and the organization is a stepping stone for them to enter into the industry. Therefore, it is anticipated that there be turn over and the Board is required to share their intrinsic knowledge while also holding the core values of Paprika as new leadership steps in over the years.

2.     Community Consultation. One of the big things that Keshia wanted to investigate is making sure there was Indigenous leadership at the top level of the organization and that meant looking at the organizational structure. There hadn’t been someone in this position since Leslie McCue who brought the Indigenous Arts Program to Paprika. We wanted to make sure that this program was being properly supported. Was this something the community still wanted? Is Paprika still the right place for this program? What kind of outreach initiatives could we take on? This meant making phone calls to the Indigenous arts community and having some honest conversations. It’s so important to get feedback directly from the community. I may be one Indigenous artist but I am not from the Tkaronto territory so it isn’t for me to decide what kind of programming should be taking place there. I think it’s always useful/responsible to engage in conversation with community because ultimately that’s who the work is for.

3.     It takes time. One of the things I had to recognize was that these aren’t aspects that take place immediately. Unfortunately, you don’t just have a conversation and update the website. It is a lot of work and expecting to implement every strategic initiative at once would be counterproductive to the goal of managing capacity. These things take place over time. I learned what would be most effective is mapping out a trajectory for these goals based on priority. Be thoughtful and patient with the process and focus on the long game.

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On Pauses and Pace: What we can learn from Paprika Festival’s past and present leaders, Keshia Palm, Julia Dickson and Amanda Lin

On December 2nd, 2024 Keshia Palm (the outgoing Artistic Producer of Paprika), Amanda Lin and Julia Dickson (the new Artistic Producer and General Manager) met with me on zoom to discuss their leadership transition. As I learned more about them as individuals, artists, and arts workers, a portrait of a changing Paprika was being painted. If you've been following, the organization recently announced that they were reducing the scale of their operations "in order to increase pay and support for everyone at Paprika". In the weeks that followed our chat, I've reflected deeply on what we can learn from Paprika— especially around the ideas of  pausing and pacing.

I've often understood capital T "Transformation" in arts organizations to mean the infrequent but seismic tumult of tectonic plates— unearthing long patterns and installing new structures for the foreseeable future. However, the leaders of Paprika showed me their own version of change that looks more like an ocean tide going in and out, shorter cycles that ebb and flow with regularity. Keshia described a historical leadership changeover rhythm of 2-3 years, with some board members wanting to increase the length of the average term moving forward. I was struck by how different this is than the slower turnover of artistic directors that spend a decade (or more) in their position, and how despite efforts to extend these terms, it seems the current pace of leadership changeover does contribute to Paprika's youthful energy and exploratory character.

Keshia and Julia shared with me that this is true. In some ways, leader changeover reflects the way Paprika's programming focuses on intensely training their artists and participants. Julia phrases the sentiment as: "Can you learn as much [in your time here] and then go on to do bigger and better things?"Also true however, is that the regularity leads to the repetition of cycles without much room for change or redirection. During an especially challenging transition period in 2020, both General Manager and Artistic Producer roles had to be vacated and onboarded simultaneously due to unavoidable circumstances. Consequently, Julia and Keshia experienced a very hands-on training period. Rather than shadowing or watching a full festival period, Keshia "ended up doing the thing, […] all hands on deck" as the circumstance required. Entering her position in tandem with provincial COVID-19 lockdowns, Julia recalled thinking at that moment: "leadership is just holding things together, wrapping it with a bandage and hoping nothing crumbles. The structures of arts non-profits often tell the same story: very little time or money available for smooth transitions of leadership, and folks on either side of the hand-off doing the best they can with what they’ve got.

Knowing that the tide of change was only 2-3 years out from their onboarding, Keshia and Julia began to plot the next changeover early on. In thinking through what the organization needed moving forward, they were simultaneously confronted with a workload that often strained the limited hours their positions were assigned. Even from before her official start with Paprika, Amanda remembered her concern that the hours both leaders were working was potentially out of balance with their compensation.Their arrival coincided with the completion of Paprika's last strategic plan (2018-2021), and Keshia and Julia had the foresight to apply to the Toronto Arts Council's Open Door Grant. Open Door "supports ideas with the potential to create transformative change for arts organizations and collectives and/or the arts sector". With the strain on current staff, industry-wide exhaustion, and the rising cost of living in Toronto it was clear— Paprika could not continue on as usual. A change needed to be made.

None of us are strangers to the seduction of rhythm's predictability. Fitting snugly into structures, cycles, or shapes that have been formed before we arrived and will likely persist after we leave feels safe, and also the "s" word that funders love so much: "stable". And yet, what if this shape is equally comforting and crumbling? In a blog post about the change, current Artistic Producer Amanda Lin notes "The topic of staff burnout and turnover is coming up a lot at arts organizations, and more and more folks are exiting the industry because they simply can’t afford to continue, financially and emotionally." I wonder: what does it take to move this from a side-conversation to the urgent forefront? What does it mean to stop the ocean tide, even swim against it?

As Keshia and Julia entered into a strategic planning process, it felt like for the first time, they were able to get in a room with the board and talk about Paprika's values without the urgency of attending to current programming. Stewarded by the folks at Currents Group the leaders met with the board, drafted sometimes as many as 6 different operating budget versions, and began engaging in community consultations. All this sculpted a period of rich re-imagining of the shape and structure of Paprika.

Keshia, Julia, and Amanda all agreed that one of the most crucial elements of the process was the community consultations with Paprika's artists and their community. When it was clear that a cut had to be made, Keshia and Julia lamented at how to decide what crucial programming would be compromised. Thankfully, Keshia said "[the consultation process] released us as leaders." Rather than bear the burden of this decision alone, community consultations allowed for a pluralistic approach, inviting in other voices to join Keshia and Julia, contributing to the discussion and guiding the final decision. Reducing programming that has become beloved and expected is tricky, and Paprika's decision to keep all their programs at reduced frequency speaks to their commitment to the communities they engage with, from emerging and aspiring producers, designers, to the artists of their Indigenous Arts Program. With detectable pride, Amanda told me "the [programming] change was made with so much love and care for the people, and you don't get to say that often".

They landed on a biannual model. Amanda's blog post explains "Instead of running six annual programs, Paprika will be running three programs per year on a two-year rotation." The post outlines all the programming costs will experience a much-needed increase and contribute to better experiences for everyone involved. I'm most interested in the increase in the Artistic Producer salary, which Keshia & Julia were determined to make "one people would actually apply to". Though arts leadership titles offer some career advancement, at smaller organizations they can often fall near or below what is considered Toronto's living wage of $67,280 a year. What message are we sending our future Artistic Directors and Artistic Producers in explicitly telling them that this important and exhaustive work isn't valuable enough to sustain a life in this city?

Among the many things this leadership transition at Paprika is teaching us is the power of pausing and pacing. Rather than passively go with the flow of the tide they entered, Keshia and Julia had the courage to stop the whole ship. Rather than feel pressured to continue as usual, the two appropriately read the moment they were in— not just the economic state of the arts in Toronto but also coming out of pandemic-related lockdowns that left other organizations shuttered. This foresight and insight was affirmed not just by the approval of Paprika's board, but also in the succession of bright new leader Amanda. In believing that their organization deserved the kind of candidate that valued fair labour practices in the arts, they got one. I look forward to seeing the next chapter flourish under Amanda’s new vision and care.

Not all reception has been positive though. With the majority of funders supporting Paprika's change, a few just don't get it. Sometimes the values don't align. Companies and individuals outside of the arts sector might see declining numbers of participants per year and only form negative interpretations of that information, even if this change increases the compensation, resources and support Paprika artists receive. However, this problem is not Paprika's alone— "there are many other arts organizations going through the same muck" remarks Julia. If most organizations are struggling with changing social context combined with outdated structures, how can we join our voices with Paprikas to tell a truer, fuller story? How can a collective outcry show our funders and sector what is really needed to care for artists and their work?

My hope is that the Paprika's transformation inspires other brave leaders wanting to pause and change pace. The truth is, the realities of making art have changed. The structures past organizations were built on are often incompatible with the moment we find ourselves in. Keshia, Julia, and Amanda have found a way to respect the legacy of Paprika while challenging it to be better to its people. As we all take up the task of challenging the structures in front of us, may we do it with the same priorities of Paprika: genuine "love and care for the people", as Amanda put it. 

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Paprika's 22/23 Hot Topics Series: "Theatre isn't made for me. And it shouldn't be.", or "Wolf Creating in Sheep's Clothing"

This is the second blog in a series of Artist Responses to Paprika’s 22/23 Hot Topics series. In this post, actor and creator Paul Smith provides a personal response to the ‘Responsible Storytelling’ online conversation.

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The more I see theatre and the more I create it, I've realized that most theatre isn't made for me. And it shouldn't be. Personally, I don’t believe that would be responsible. Theatre would suck more than it already does if it were only made for someone like me. But who am I? What is that responsibility, and who is that responsibility to? In the performing arts sector, I would say it’s to our community. But I question, when we think about community, is it the audience buying into our programming or the audience that has never felt welcomed to? However you define it, it is clear that there is some vague sense of duty we take on as storytellers, and if that is what we continue to call ourselves in grant applications and “about us” pages, then that inherent responsibility should be applied to all sides of production.

Cut to Feb. 22, 2023: I'm watching the Paprika Festival's latest Hot Topics session on "Responsible Storytelling". I'm speaking out loud as though I'm sitting in the live-streamed Zoom room with Santiago Guzman & Donna-Michelle St. Bernard, facilitated by Cheyanne Scott. The three brilliant artists can't hear me snapping or see me nodding, but I want them to know how much their words impact me. You can catch the recording of the discussion focused primarily on the creation-based practices of Guzman and St. Bernard here, but their paraphrased themes can be found along this response. On your way to the end, I’ve articulated myself through a list and some art.

“Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing”, AI-prompt-to-painting by Paul Smith inspired by Donna-Michelle St. Bernard likening a [mal/misintention] playwright who hides harm behind their story as a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

But first, a definition. At this moment, I understand community as an environment or population in which an understanding of care is intentionally shared, established, and respected. In my communities, you care for one another when no one else will. Love born out of survival. Despite its instinct to protect, love can cloud the impact of your care. In turn, when care is misplaced, healing can not happen until you understand the harm caused. If you create while denying healing, you only create space for harm. Responsibility in storytelling is then not only about accepting the big wins. It’s also accepting the losses (or learning moments), and facing the choice to own and learn from them instead of denying the reality of one's mishandling of responsibility—lest it spill over into the stories we share and how we share them. 

Here are my takeaways: 

1. “When you know all there is to know, your community will teach you all that you forgot.” The question of "responsible storytelling" is not only that of a playwright, dramaturg, performer, or director. It starts and ends with all of us, no matter your role on the performance, production, or administrative side. The message is important, but responsibility comes in how we tell it. Remembering that can allow for fruitful, authentic, and ongoing relationships that foster community as a base pillar of the art we create, but when it is jeopardized or trivialized, neither those making or consuming the art (nor the art itself) will experience their fullest potential.

2. “Give your community the power to try”. Your intention matters, but it also doesn’t. Your community will experience your story however they experience it, and no amount of care can stop that. However, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. This notion of trying is what interests me so much, as the art of trying is expensive. Unfortunately, there’s not always enough to go around, and even when you're graced with it, how do you use it responsibly? I don’t know. I’ve stopped believing I have to be the one to figure that out.

   That being said, I have some offers. 

   a. Talk-backs & Talk-forwards.

   i. The arts’ way of describing what I grew up calling an Ask Me Anything (or AMA). Much like applause after a show, these question-and-answers before or after a show are moments that lower the wall that separates the artist(s) from the audience and equates us as people. I see them as a means of engaging in active discourse, as opposed to just stirring it up and vanishing at the end of a curtain call (if we are granted one). If you have a great facilitator who can host these kinds of discussions, talkbacks and talk-forwards can evolve from an expense to a tradition that makes space for education, meaningful connection, and care. In the last year, I’ve talked with audience members about why they’ve felt uncared for by a production, and often have to tell them “Sorry, I don’t work here”. There are many productions with many reasons why these events don’t happen, but I would have loved to see these paired with a production like Fairview (2023).
   

   b. Check-ins, Check-outs, and the 24/48 Space

   i. Sometimes, we bite our tongues for the sake of “the work”. Doing so will only continue to hurt us. So, if something affects you and you are still thinking about it 24 hours later, for whatever reason, know that you can and should address it in the next 48 hours. That space can be created as a result of checking in and out with your community at various checkpoints along the timeline of production, or the start and end of each day. If where you are doesn’t make you feel like that’s possible, maybe you have yet to find or foster community. In The First Stone (2022), similar conventions played a small and essential role in the production.
   

   c. Community Engagement as Gesamtkunstwerk: The Contemporary “Total Work”

   i. It is simply not enough for a company with the finances to do more than two shows a year to not engage their community outside of performance. If for whatever reason you choose not to hold a separate event or initiative, how can a community be integrated into the performance itself? I often think about Where the Blood Mixes (2022) or Dixon Road (2022). The former’s design integrated artwork from young students in their community, and the latter production also included reserved spaces for prayer where the show could also still be experienced.
   

   d. Community Nights

   i. An extension of the original Black Out Night concept as seen in Slave Play (2020), I see a future where Community Nights act to hold and support space for an affinity group or community that is used as a device for the themes behind the work they are being invited to witness. It’s not just for Blacks anymore (unless we say so)!

“You can’t create for your community responsibly until you stop being scared of them.” I finish the session realizing I still haven’t answered who I am, nor what my responsibility is. As a 24-year-old queer-Black emerging artist with a lot of interests and never enough time, identifying community is harder than defining it, because my community is large. I don’t think I’m equipped to responsibly care for all of them in the ways they need, and that scares me. But I intend to try and will listen as I do, because that is my responsibility as a storyteller.

Now, your turn. Who are you? Who is your community and how have you cared for them? How have you experienced responsible and irresponsible storytelling in your own community? Let me know when you know.

End of list.

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Quotes from the Paprika live-event that I offer if you aren’t tired of reading:

I want to entertain but at the end of the day, I think about what is it that this story is going to do for my audience. I think a lot about theater as a way of engaging with our community, so I have a responsibility when I put a story on stage. And I think a lot about that: why am I telling this story to begin with. I think that that's my entry point.
-Santiago

Whatever you're writing, you're putting yourself into it and your perspective into it. Even when you are writing someone for a story that seems far from your lived experience, you are going to insert yourself—not necessarily have a specific avatar, but really all up and down in the cracks. So it's good to know that going in, to intentionally look for what you don't know what you can't know.
-DM

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Paprika’s 22/23 Hot Topics Series: Artist Response - Michael Caldwell

This is the first blog in a series of Artist Responses to Paprika’s 22/23 Hot Topics series. In this post, Generator’s Creative Director: Programming Michael Caldwell provides a personal response to the ‘With Care’ online conversation.

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At Generator, we’ve had a long and fruitful history in partnership with Paprika, as our missions, our programming, and our ways-of-working have consistently aligned to consider what support looks like for artists and producers in the early stages of their careers. 

‘Care’ is a big topic, and it seems to be on everyone’s minds and in everyone’s hearts within our diverse communities of artistic practice, especially in the context of the current state of world affairs.

I was unable to attend Paprika’s Hot Topic live session on November 30th, though I was able to view (and now respond to) the recorded version on their Facebook page.

The opening title card brought forward a question, as a prompt for response in the chat room, while we awaited the start of the session… what do you need to feel safe and comfortable in the creative process? Within my own work as a creator and as a facilitator, I’ve been moving further and further away from the idea of ‘comfort’ and leaning into working within discomfort, so my curiosity was already piqued with where this discussion might go… 

A screenshot from the Paprika Hot Topic opening screen

This online session featured multi-hyphenate artists, Yolanda Bonnell and Katey Wattam in conversation with Paprika’s Community Programming Producer, Cheyenne Scott. In her welcome and introduction, Cheyenne spoke about her relationship to care, as a seed for this conversation, suggesting that it is easy (and I would personally say, ‘in fashion’) to speak about why care is important, but that it is vital and necessary to talk about how we can implement care into our processes. I was excited to hear this, and so curious about the tangibles that might come forward.

To begin, Cheyenne brought forward a series of story posts from Yolanda’s Instagram page, as source material for, and as a springboard into, the conversation.  For me, the two sentences that really struck me - 

“You have to actually WANT to do this work.”

“Care as a base shouldn’t be a radical act.”

Wow. 

Much of the initial conversation really focused on the idea of unlearning what we’ve been taught. Yolanda cited the culture of always saying ‘yes’, working overtime and not sleeping, and suffering for our art, as outdated and harmful dogmas that require conscious unlearning. And within this, there is an inherent ableism; “because the system works for some, it must work for everyone”. This false assumption does not value everyone’s lived and living experience, and leads to a version of theatre in which only certain privileged individuals are able to practice. 

Next, there was a conversation about rehearsal spaces and processes and how they can be caring ones. For me, many of the offerings were (and mostly have been, in the course of my work in Tkaronto) related to time; carving out more time before, during and after rehearsals for care. Yolanda brought forward a recent creative process in which they checked in with all of the artists, before rehearsals even began, to ask questions about the ways that they like to work, and how the room could feel safer and more supported. Katey spoke about a 2-3 day ‘getting to know you’ moment at the beginning of the rehearsal process, to co-create a contract of care for the space. Shorter work days or weeks, check-ins and check-outs, adjusting work hours, and daily rituals, were all mentioned as essential considerations…

Within this notion of added time (and labor) to our rehearsals, a more nuanced and supportive conversation is required with our granting bodies, our institutional spaces, and all those with real or perceived power, to truly support our individual efforts to prioritize care in our creative practices.

A wellness table was perhaps the most tangible offering from this session, and certainly something that I intend to bring forward in my own rehearsal processes. By carving out a space where folx can ask for what they want and need, the table begins to be populated with snacks, vitamins, blankets, mats, stickers, fidget toys, lotions… anything that enhances the overall well being of the individuals in the room. And as Yolanda shared, the wellness table is different for every project, as it changes with the different people in each room.

Screen shot: Cheyenne Scott (top left), Katey Wattam (top right), Yolanda Bonnell (bottom).

Katey spoke about learnings along her path towards a masters degree in social work, with a focus on Indigenous trauma. I was particularly taken by the idea of a window of tolerance, a range of capacity for an individual’s mind, body, and nervous system. When something triggers us, and we become disregulated in a space, how do we stay rooted and become grounded, and how do we relate with others to speak about disregulation, and move towards repair? Katey referred to this empowering work as ‘a cognitive life raft’ - tapping into the sensing, feeling, and thinking self to arrive at a common vocabulary, to create and share more tools for how to remain in the circle within conflict.

“It’s wild what our bodies go through!” says Yolanda, in reference to what we ask of ourselves in performance, and I absolutely agree. We so often ask ourselves to inhabit characters and imagine situations, to tell stories that are incredibly challenging and complex. Through the rehearsal process, Katey believes that it’s important for each individual’s window of tolerance to expand; to build up personal tolerance over time and increase the capacity for holding a specific story. 

I truly believe that it is impossible to create a ‘safe space’ where everyone is safe, 100% of the time. When I step outside my door each morning, I encounter different people with different perspectives and I experience discomfort. There is an inherent risk within my engagement with the world around me. This is the same in any rehearsal room, especially when we move into new spaces with new people, all with their own histories and beliefs and opinions and ways-of-working. Cheyenne summarized it best when she said, “Be willing to adjust your plans and be willing to adapt and sacrifice!” There’s a poignant truth in this, even for those of us who are working within constructs of care. The work demands listening; it requires responsiveness and it may even require saving the rehearsal of that scene for tomorrow, while the room attends to community care today.

At the end of the session, Cheyenne brought forward one final question… “What is your last bit of advice, or tips and tricks, for engaging in this work?”

Yolanda: “Honour yourself as a human being that exists in this world, over anything else. You are part of a living, breathing ecosystem, and you deserve care and rest.”

Katey: “There’s no such thing as a ‘difficult’ person, only people with difficult behaviours, and those difficult behaviours point to a need that is not being met. Next time, consider what need is not being met, as this might become an opening for repair.”

Cheyenne: “Transparency. More consciousness and awareness about what people can expect; more communication and preparation. Prepare the expectations in advance. And if you are not receiving the information, know that you can ask for what you want and ask for what you need.”

A truly thoughtful and affecting ending to a very whole session about care.

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Paprika Festival is a youth-led professional performing arts organization, which runs year-round professional training and mentorship programs that culminate in a performing arts festival of new work by young artists.

Paprika’s Hot Topics series is presented with support from Why Not Theatre.

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