Meet Vancouver-based theatre director, Mindy Parfitt.
20 Questions with Mindy Parfitt
1. Your first job.
The Dairy Queen on Broadway and Trafalgar. I could make a mean dipped cone.
2. The job you always wanted as a child?
A drummer.
3. Your pet peeve.
Motorcycles.
4. Your hero.
My kids – for daring to be themselves in this crazy world.
5. Your biggest indulgence.
Organic dark chocolate 70%. Green & Blacks is always in my cupboard.
6. One thing no one knows about you.
I danced a traditional dance with the 90-year-old President of Malawi in a stadium filled with thousands of people.
7. Three things you would want with you on a deserted island.
A knife, a sun shirt with a hood and a boat.
8. The one word your best friend would use to describe you.
Grit. She said it’s defined by five characteristics: courage, conscientiousness, perseverance, resilience and passion.
9. If they made a movie about your life, who would it star?
Jodie Foster. Everyone says I look like her.
10. Hero or villain?
The place where wickedness and generosity meet.
11. Your life’s motto/mantra.
Have fun and try not to be too sarcastic.
12. Your favourite playwright?
Colleen Murphy.
13. The last book you read.
Jeanette Winterson’s Frankissstein.
14. If you were a cartoon character, what cartoon character would you be, and why?
I wish I could say Eeyore, but it is probably Lucy.
15. What will it say on your grave marker?
She isn’t here; she’s been cremated.
16. Who would you most like to have dinner with?
I’d like to have dinner with my aunt, who recently passed. I’d like to be able to ask her all the questions I couldn’t when she was alive, and I’d like her to be free from societal constraints and be able to answer them with honesty.
17. Your idea of happiness.
Being with my family and close friends, in a place I can speak Spanish, relaxing.
18. If you could go back in time, what would you tell your twenty-year-old self?
You’re going to get cancer and you’re going to survive.
19. The one thing in your life that makes you most proud.
Easy. My sons.
20. To be or not to be?
To be is not to be. To not to be is to be.
Meet Mindy Parfitt
Mindy Parfitt is a Vancouver-based theatre director.
She began her career in Montreal, where she founded an award-winning company before moving back to her home town of Vancouver, where she co-founded Horseshoes & Hand Grenades Theatre Company.
She is a graduate of both Concordia University (BFA) and UBC (MFA) and has studied with internationally recognized acting and directing teachers. Her work has been nominated for and the recipient of numerous Jessie Richardson Awards.
Mindy has the great fortune of working on a wide variety of theatre productions from world premieres to collective creations to community-based productions. She has helped bring to the stage many new Canadian works. Mindy often collaborates with dancer/choreographer Amber Funk Barton.
Mindy recently founded The Search Party, a theatre company committed to bringing emotionally powerful and aesthetically rigorous productions to Vancouver’s stages. Focusing on contemporary theatre, The Search Party is committed to a strong cohesion between text and design.