We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Fiona Mcgrath a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Fiona, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about the things you feel your parents did right and how those things have impacted your career and life.

Throughout my life and the time I have spent building my career, the support, mentorship, and pushback from my parents has served as a guidepost and a resource that has allowed me not only to grow as a young professional but also to thrive creatively in my dream industry.

My parents are both entrepreneurs and while business minded they are also both artists who look to creativity not just as a personal meditation but as an evolving endeavor – always curious to learn something new or collaborate with other artists in different ways. Through watching this I have learned the importance of leading with a beginner’s mindset at the forefront of all endeavors. The encouragement to be curious rather than fearful when approached with challenges has encouraged my resilience and allowed me to take risks without the fear of failure and instead with a sense of wonder and curiosity as to what challenges might come my way and what lessons I may encounter and grow from.

A huge gift that my parents have given me is their accessibility and their feedback. They have always welcomed the random text or call to seek advice on a new challenge and they have encouraged me to take in multiple perspectives, even in moments when I am not sure I want to hear them. While making time to be present with me and celebrate and acknowledge my successes, they have also always followed them up with a next step or a suggestion for a new idea to consider – challenging me to hold success and growth hand in hand, to appreciate the wins as they come without resting on my laurels. Through this they have taught me to welcome failure as an opportunity for growth and to view success as an ongoing pursuit, one that is earned each day and in each decision.

One of the clearest memories I have of my mother as a businesswoman is from when I was either in middle school or late elementary. My parents own a preschool and were in the process of trying to expand and buy a building for their school to move into. After being met with initial success my mum had an investor step out of the picture and in doing so he decided to land a very personal blow to her, questioning her ability to succeed in this next step of growth and telling her that her vision was not possible or worth her money and time. She sat me down and explained to me what had happened, how it was impacting her business, and what it meant to her to hear those words. She then explained to me that she knew in her gut that she was the only person who could decide to tell her no and to give up on the project, if her heart was still in it and she still believed in what she was doing nobody could tell her anything to dissuade her. My father shared this sentiment in the phrase he has repeated to me, “No problems, only solutions”. Their combined wisdom and the daily example they have given with their own resilience has taught me that the only thing that can take me down is a poor mindset and that every challenge will have a solution or an alternative – it is simply a matter of thinking both critically and creatively and being willing to work hard. They have also instilled in me the belief that people truly get excited and care about people who are passionate – if you can let your passion for what you do shine through, it will attract people around you who share your investment in your vision and get excited about the same things you do. Community is invaluable and the first step in building it is your own proud enthusiasm for the things you love and believe in.

Fiona, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am the Founder and Artistic Director of Los Angeles Theatre Initiative (LATI). LATI is a company that produces work across the United States to tour internationally and perform at the world’s largest arts festival, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. My mum was born and raised in Edinburgh and I have been fortunate enough to have spent most Augusts in Edinburgh from a very early age on and attending this festival is where I first fell in love with theatre. I quickly knew that theatre was what I wanted to spend my life doing. What’s beautiful about Edinburgh Fringe is that it is an open festival and one that celebrates art of all shapes and sizes – anyone who is willing to put in the work and time can register to present their work.

Originally, I had my sights set on Broadway and decided that one day when I had “made it” I would go back to Edinburgh Fringe and do a performance there reminiscing on where my love for theatre first started. My dad suggested the idea of taking a group from my high school to perform and initially I was dismissive, it felt out of reach but after thinking it through it started to stick. I pitched the idea of taking a group to my high school and after initial support the next steps ended up falling through, at that point I felt that I had done enough research and thought through the logistics thoroughly enough to feel confident running the trip independently. My family was encouraging and supportive through every step and I ended up directing my first show at age 16 and touring it to the EdFringe with a cast of 12 right after I turned 17. We went sightseeing and shared the culture of Scotland, saw shows at the festival, and went on to have our show professionally filmed and archived by the Fringe Society as part of a time capsule to celebrate their 70th year anniversary.

I took a break to focus on getting into college with the sense I might revisit EdFringe one day. It was during the second year of COVID and in the middle of my degree, that I felt the time to revisit LATI had come. I posted on my socials that I was restarting this company and would run a program and trip to Edinburgh the following summer and went on to receive 60 auditions and brought a cast of 20 actors from my school, Muhlenberg College, to Edinburgh in the summer of 2022. From there LATI expanded to work with students at Northwestern University, Loyola Marymount University, UCLA, USC, and Ithaca College. We have also done work with high school groups and have now launched a professional season that runs alongside our collegiate programming. Our college groups present primarily new work written by students and our cast and crews pay to participate in LATI’s programming and join us for an immersive experience in Edinburgh not only performing but sightseeing, sharing meals, connecting with other young artists and immersing themselves in Scottish culture. For many students, a trip with LATI is their first time out of the country, which is something that I feel a great deal of privilege to be able to facilitate.

I have thought a lot about why I love theatre and why I come back to Edinburgh Fringe so often. I now run LATI full time and this year marks our 5th season at EdFringe and our 15th production! I think for me the thing that I keep coming back to is the community building that happens in the rehearsal room which is only deepened by the component of traveling and living together. Art is important and young voices are important and travel is something that I feel passionately about – in my view money spent on travel is never money wasted if it is within your means. It is always an opportunity to learn more about yourself, more about other cultures, and to expand your worldview – these are values that I keep right at the forefront of all my work and values which I think are critical to being an involved community member both on intimate, local, and international levels.

What I am most proud of is how many new plays we have been able to facilitate from development to production and how many young creative people I have been able to connect and collaborate with. I have had an incredible team share in the growth of LATI – most especially, Madeline Oberle our Director of Growth & Development, who has had an amazing voice in the growth and shift towards new work that LATI has favored.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

One thing that continues to be a challenge for me to get my head around is the reality that not everything in my line of work can be approached in a linear fashion. I am a highly organized and structured person in my day to day life and while I know that structure is necessary to art to a degree it is also a block to creative problem solving and the critical thinking that is needed to approach problem solving for creative projects – especially ones where you are exploring and learning as you go! I have found that the times I have had the most success are when I am able to break out of black and white thinking and embrace exploring the areas of grey in the challenges that I am presented with.

I can also find it challenging to balance and structure my work schedule both throughout the year and while in Edinburgh. When you work for yourself there is always a next step and there is always more you can do, it is a challenge to know when to push and when to stop, even right now I’m thinking about if I’ve updated our website recently enough and when is too soon to start thinking about our next season? After I finish this, should I spend 30 minutes making a better organizational/inventory system for our storage unit or is my time better spent elsewhere? I’ve found that setting limits for my day and my week in terms of hours spent working is helpful while still allowing necessary flexibility – a 9 to 5 isn’t feasible for my kind of work. I have also found that time blocking allows me to make space for longer periods of deep work which is when I find myself at my most productive.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

A lesson that I am still working on unlearning is the idea that being considered nice and “likable” is a measure of my success as a leader. While I am sure many other people have struggled with this same idea, I think it is especially a challenge for women in leadership positions. There is a deep sense of connection between our value and our likability that is hard to unwire. In areas where a man is seen as assertive a woman is often seen as demanding, where a man is giving constructive criticism a woman is taking herself too seriously or is impossible to please – it is a tricky line to walk and not for the faint of heart. There are a few lessons I have learned over the years that have helped me to navigate this, but the main one is something I learned from my Aunt Stacey which really struck me and shifted the way I view my role as a leader – “It’s not your job to be “nice” to everyone however, it is essential to be kind.”

There is a HUGE difference between being nice and being kind. Often “nice” does not live alongside “honest” and usually we are choosing to be nice out of either the fear of damaging the way we are being perceived or out of the fear of hurting someone else. I think that often being direct is dismissed as being confrontational, but what I have found is that the best conversations I have had are ones that have been direct, honest, and kind. Being kind and being honest puts respect at the forefront of the conversation – it becomes about solving a problem or addressing an issue together rather than about protecting ego or saving face.

I consider myself a successful leader when the people I work with feel safe, supported, empowered to advocate for both themselves and others, and when there is an established basis of mutual respect. If someone pulls me aside to question a choice I made or to express frustration over something, I no longer see that as a failure in my character or decision making, but as a huge success in my leadership that I have created an environment where we can seek to collaborate more deeply and welcome discussion and honesty as building blocks for a healthy creative partnership.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.losangelestheatreinitiative.com/
• Instagram: @losangelestheatre
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fiona-mcgrath-6bb1291b9

Image Credits

Goose & Barley (Lucy Blumenfield / Charlie McCollum)