We recently connected with Natasha Vincent and have shared our conversation below.

Natasha, appreciate you joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

The most meaningful project I’ve worked on recently has been The Christening of Prince Imogene, a theatre piece that I’ve been the Director and Creative Producer for that we have taken to the Edinburgh Fringe festival as part of a collective of shows coming from NYC called the Brooklyn Bottling Company. I was a Co-Producer for this collective so all six shows have a special little place in my heart, and I acted in Sent From My Phone, one of the shows, which has been a complete joy and privilege to perform in under director Catrin Ody. The Christening of Prince Imogene is written and performed by a dear best friend from NYC, Otis Wolodarsky, and it’s been so great to discover a creative soulmate in him. The show is a musical exploration of romantic failure and a redefinition of what it means to be trans. Otis uses original songs to track his coming of age, and has crafted his story around these songs. It’s such an expansive show and has taught me a lot. It’s been a pleasure to bring to life, and is ever evolving, so I’m excited to see what happens in the next leg of its journey. Otis’ writing is the most exciting to direct, and he is such a natural storyteller that it’s been the perfect project to learn and grow with. I know working with your friends doesn’t always work out, but my goodness have we been lucky with this one! Learning from Tom Costello, former teacher and director, who has lead this collective has also informed this process as I’ve learned so much from his mentorship. Overall, I’m very lucky to have recently been able to collaborate with awesome, kind and talented people.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’m an actor/director/producer/writer originally from the UK before going to NYU Tisch studying Drama, Creative Producing and Business of Entertainment and Media Technologies. With these skills and passions, I help people tell their stories in ways that ideally are hopeful, loving, playful and honest. In my training and work experience in Theatre, TV and Film I’ve been spoiled in working with the most talented, kind and hardworking people who don’t take themselves too seriously, and my wish is to continue doing just that, if I can. One of the reasons I have always loved the arts is being part of a team, and the goal is to be able to make a living by being valuable to these teams going forward. I want to take the American openness, ambition and silliness that I have learned, and the British wit and mix them into a creative style soup that will be able to feed me literally and figuratively. Fingers crossed!

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

I interned for SEGAL NYC researching the 31 Women surrealist artists that were part of Peggy Guggenheim’s exhibition, and I learned a lot about the spiritual influence in their art forms. I wish that I knew of their work earlier for a lot of reasons, but I was inspired by their curiosities in the unknown, and the expansiveness in the way these curiosities were actualized. What I learned was that most of these women were multi-disciplinary. They thrived in expressing themselves in more than one way, and in many cases, needed to do so to pay the bills. I think it was valuable for me to see these artists that are so respected, but didn’t feel boxed into one form. It’s allowed me to not feel ashamed for wanting to excel in one area. I was very afraid to be a Jack-of-all-trades/master-of-none case, but it turns out it’s ok to be passionate and skilled in a few roles and lean into those sides of myself. I am learning, however, how to wear those hats in a way that does justice to those specific disciplines and energies. If spirits etc. are real, the 31 Women I think are sometimes around helping me out.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

Winning Not Fighting, by John Vincent (yes, my dad). A Practical Handbook For The Actor. Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds by Adrienne Maree Brown. The Highest Self Podcast by Sahara Rose.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @natashavincent1
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/natasha-vincent-347877246/

Image Credits

Images 1 and 2: Celeste Gimonet
Image 4: DP Kelly McCready