24: Fostering Community through Deaf and Disability Theatre with Col Cseke

Col Cseke is the Artistic & Executive Director at Inside Out Theatre, which is a Deaf and disability theatre company in Calgary invested in artistic excellence, community development, and deepening our cultures’ accessibility. He also runs a podcast called Mad Practice with his best buddy JD, where they talk about living with madness and generally just revel in their friendship. In this episode, we explore his journey with theatre and the connections he’s made within that industry, as well as the mental health effects of the pandemic and how it’s shifted our interactions with people. A candid and inspirational conversation, he shares a lesson he learned this past year: “Good people know good people.” In other words, connecting with one good person who is very involved in the community can lead to all these other relationships with awesome people.

Highlights & Takeaways

• Col has always had an inclination towards storytelling and community building, and so a life in a theatre gave him a chance to do both of these things
• Inside Out Theatre emphasizes that work created by and centered around artists with disabilities or deaf artists is a really vital part of us. It’s not a charitable or “nice thing to do”, but that in itself is a rich and thriving culture.
• How during the pandemic he convinced himself that he was introvert and didn’t need to be around other people, which wasn’t true. But it was his coping mechanism as a way to not ask for help or be vulnerable with others.
• Becoming comfortable with reaching out to friends just to talk and catch up, and not for any other particular reason or facade
• How it’s difficult for a lot of people to make friends as an adult, but recognize that that’s okay too

Resources Mentioned

• Contact Col: Email
• Inside Out Theatre
• PechaKuchaYYC
• Mad Practice Podcast

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