We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Grant Cartwright a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Grant, we’re thrilled to have you sharing your thoughts and lessons with our community. So, for folks who are at a stage in their life or career where they are trying to be more resilient, can you share where you get your resilience from?
I used to wonder which is more powerful; kindness or perspective? In a vulnerable moment of genuine connection early in my career I once asked a leader I aimed to emulate, which of the two they thought to be the worthier. Their answer was immediate as was my feeling that they perhaps lacked perspective in claiming kindness to be the one. Oh dear! But seriously, I think my resilience comes from holding perspective as one of my more practical core values. Perspective allows you to see situations from multiple viewpoints, enhances wisdom and judgement, facilitates growth and learning, improves problem solving and enhances communication. It also allows me to stand up for myself, or others, and advocate for individual experience in any given circumstance with empathy – and kindness.
This question traveled with me through time and space. Out of my hometown in Newcastle, Australia, at a young age and through the 25 apartments I lived in over 20 years between Sydney and Melbourne and then in NYC where I moved to pursue my dreams – yes of a career in the big pond with the big fish, but also dreams of the kind of life I wanted to live in a place that stirred me, shook me, and accepted me. As a freelance artist, an actor, I traversed theatre stages, microphones, camera lenses and this uncharted, often unsettling virtual world, with soaring highs, crushing lows and the general liminal existence of anyone not ‘famous’. I learned resilience, sometimes the hard way, navigating a career, a life, between continents. Even now as I devote my time to Artistic and Event Direction and to leadership within the LGBTQIA+ community, it is with a clear and hopeful perspective that I have learned to move through the world, to reveal resilience and lead with heart.
I became a father at 40 and am dad to a daughter, who is the most magical almost-6-year-old. My greatest joy and my greatest teacher all wrapped up in one. I parent from afar (hallelujah Facetime!). I knew early on that the best Dad I could be, was to be the happiest man I could be and I knew that was going to be here in my new home, my new space, my new time. I consider this to be my hardest, yet greatest decision to have made, a perspective power move perhaps? And it has paid off. My baby is thriving, traversing the globe seamlessly, as am I, and our relationship, our bond, my parenting, her reach for her Dad, is in no way lessened by the tyranny of distance.
My mental health journey needs to take the credit for arriving at this confidence in perspective. Many years ago, I had what used to be called a ‘nervous breakdown’ but is now labeled with the less sexy, ‘mental health episode’ and at its climax I was left lying on a metaphorical canyon floor with the weight of my anxiety and lack of perspective working together to make the climb back up the mountain daunting to say the least. But get up I did and climbing I went, with therapy, exercise, healthy relationships, self acceptance and implementing positive changes in my life. Resilience, perspective, commitment to values and strength in love is the path I’ve chosen to/learned to tread.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I am the current Artistic Director of the award-winning Shakespeare Slay Fest; and Speak Up! Festival. I am a director, theater-maker, award-winning actor and writer. I aim to express a bold, queer voice across all mediums in a shoes off, blood on the dancefloor, dirt and glitter under your nails kind of way. My own theatre company The Leopold Project is currently developing a reimagining (a reckoning) of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, because challenging classic texts gets me going. You’ll occasionally see me Project Managing for Canadian environmental company Green Event Ninjas at large scale events across North America, aligning with my passion to incorporate genuine sustainability efforts into events and festivals that I direct.
One of my proudest professional achievements has been to serve on the board of NYC Pride and direct PrideFest, the city’s annual LGBTQIA+ street festival, curating a day of fun and celebration in the name of equality. Two stages, ten city blocks, twenty performers, one hundred and fifty volunteers, one hundred thousand+ exhibitors and two hundred thousand+ attendees. For two years running I was at the helm of this community party, considered the biggest street festival in the city, creating an accessible and safe space for everybody to be seen and uplifted.
Fun fact: I have narrated over 220 audiobooks and if you’ve listened to a romance title narrated by Rupert Channing, he may just sound a little like me 😉
The Speak Up! Festival was held this year in Brooklyn for Youth Pride. Shakespeare Slay Fest will slay into NYC this coming November.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
It is easier for me to name three women. Lindy Davies; Tanya Gerstle; Shelly Lauman. All three lead me back to the same origin point and all three have had a profound effect on my evolution and have been most impactful on me as an artist and a human. I trained at the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne, Australia. A prestigious full-time, three year, actor training program. Lindy Davies was the Head of School; Tanya Gerstle, Lecturer in Acting; Shelly Lauman fellow student. The philosophy centered around individual voices and a global creative community. The training was impulse based and kinesthetic. These women guided me to whole heartedly embrace the task; take risks to achieve the goal; and walk beside others with honesty and joy.
My advice is to listen to your teachers, listen to those you respect, listen to yourself, and find the fun in all of it.
Looking back over the past 12 months or so, what do you think has been your biggest area of improvement or growth?
Saying ‘yes’ with immediacy and heart. This current political climate is taking away the rights and freedoms of many with alarming speed. Voices are being restrained, restricted and repressed and the arts continue to be defunded and undervalued. For those of us leading artistic lives, art is life and life is art and the lines between the two blur constantly. There is an urgency, a lifeforce perhaps, to make art, say something meaningful and express what is happening around us. However much the odds appear to be against us, we still have agency.
Saying ‘yes’, is how the Speak Up! Festival was achieved. The slither of an opportunity arose and while the prospects of achieving a certain kind of success looked bleak, we weighed the logistics against our hearts and said ‘YES’, propelling us forward into success. We got the festival up in 3 weeks, scored enough eleventh hour funding to make an event that traversed Opera, Tango, Shakespeare and a Community Karaoke Choir that took the sky off! – it was outdoors you see ;).
Try kick starting a project with the word ‘yes’, see how high you soar. And if you don’t then you don’t, the sky – at least for now – is ours for the taking.
When I think of the past 12 months, I married my incredible husband, my daughter started school, we began the journey to build a bigger family through adoption, all while raising a giant Bernedoodle puppy who has taken over our lives! Saying yes with immediacy and heart seems to be my MO. It feels really good.
I do want to acknowledge that I move through this world with the privilege afforded a white, cisgendered man. I acknowledge that is not the lens of many artists, or other professionals.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.grantcartwright.com
- Instagram: @grant.cartwright
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/grant-l-cartwright/
Image Credits
Robin Michals
Nelson Luna
Davey K.
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
