Ryan Borochovitz is a fourth-year Theatre Studies student with one foot out the door and into the real world. Sad Ibsen Theatre, a company that he founded while in his third year at York University, will be taking their work to Red Sandcastle Theatre in Toronto this January. We sat down with Ryan to talk about his company’s debut performance: Exiles, by James Joyce. This interview was conducted by Megan Apa.

How did Sad Ibsen Theatre come to be? How did you pick that name?
I suppose, in the early days, it was more of an effort to brand myself than any kind of serious thought about starting a company. One of these early projects to which I had attached this logo was Like a Bicycle, a short absurdist play that I wrote for last year’s playGround Festival. When George [Kiriakopulos], who directed that play, saw the logo, he asked me what it was about. That got us talking about our long-term theatre goals, one thing lead to another, and pretty soon we were talking about starting up our own company. We already had a name and a logo, all we needed to do was keep making theatre. And that’s really all there was to it. Starting a theatre company, despite being a ton of work, is a lot simpler than it used to be. Nowadays, everyone can, and is encouraged to, start their own if they want to get their work out there.

Read More