We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Paul Daily. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Paul below.

Alright, Paul thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

I’ve been extremely fortunate to work almost exclusively on meaningful projects, whether they were personally meaningful or meaningful to the community at large. I think that’s the joy of being an artist – you can choose to make your work meaningful. In fact, my father always asks me why I don’t do escapism. I choose not to do escapism because it does not feel meaningful to me, even while I acknowledge it has an important place in our lives.

With that as the background, it will seem particularly ludicrous that one of the most meaningful projects I ever worked on was “The SpongeBob Musical”. I taught for two years at a high school, starting the same time there as my oldest son entered the high school as a freshman. My son chose to go to that school not because of me – I didn’t even have the job when he made his choice – but because years ago he had done a production at the high school while in elementary school, and it created a strong bond for him with that school. Keeping that in mind, I did “The SpongeBob Musical” and opened auditions up to the entire school system. I felt it would help feed into the school’s theatre program for years to come.

My two younger children along with my oldest all auditioned. They all received small roles, and although most of my time was spent working with the leads, it was a joy to have all three of my children working with me, doing the creative work that makes me most happy. It was an experience I carry close to my heart, and I know my children will always have happy memories of it as well. And, well, really – how can you not have a great time working on a SpongeBob show?

Paul, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am currently Executive Director of IF Theatre, home of IndyFringe Festival, one of the largest Fringe Festivals in the US. Prior to this, I’ve done almost every aspect in theatre.

I grew up in Kokomo, IN, and when I was around 10, my older sister went to audition for “The Wizard of Oz” My mother dragged me along because there was nothing else to do with me. Halfway through the auditions they called out and asked anyone interested to come up and audition for the munchkins, and my mom nudged me onto the stage. At the end of auditions, my older sister, the one who could do anything, and could do it better than me every time, was not cast and I was. I have been sold on theatre ever since.

I received a BA from Indiana University in 1998 where I double-majored in Theater and Drama and Sociology. After graduating from Indiana University, I moved to London, England and then to New York City. In New York, I served as Associate Artistic Director for two theaters, including Rabbit Hole Ensemble, a company I co-founded and helped run from 2005–2007. My last show with Rabbit Hole Ensemble, “The Night of Nosferatu”, was picked up from off-off-Broadway and taken to Wellfleet, where the “Cape Cod Times” deemed the play one of the best shows of 2007. It also made Popshifter.com’s list of Top Ten Things to Love in 2007.

During the summer of 2010, I participated in the 2010 New York Planet Connections Theatre Festivity, where I was awarded Outstanding Lead Actor in a Play for the role of Charles in “The Manhattan Project.”

After completing the run of “The Manhattan Project”, I moved to Bloomington, IN to become the Artistic Director of Ivy Tech’s John Waldron Arts Center. While working at Ivy Tech, I finished my MFA in Directing at Indiana University. I also served as the founding Dean of the School of Fine Arts, and as Executive Director for the Center for Lifelong Learning.

Since leaving Ivy Tech, I spent time as a freelance actor, director, and educator. Some of my accomplishments include helping the Bloomington Playwrights Project through the first year of the pandemic as Associate Artistic Director, directing “Confessions of a Former Monkey Mind Doctor” and taking it on the road, and leading high school students through the creation of devised theatre, exploring social justice through the process of theatrical storytelling. As of June 2024, I have taken on the role of Executive Director at IF Theatre, home of the IndyFringe Festival.

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

Flat-out, “The Art of the Turnaround: Creating and Maintaining Healthy Arts Organizations” by Michael Kaiser is THE book for running a performing arts organization. His ideas of how to think ahead and look to the big picture are inspiring and effective. It is far too easy for a small arts organization to get caught up in they day-to-day reality of simply trying to survive, and Kaiser reminds us no one is interested in survival. We look to arts organizations to inspire us, to lead us to better places, and to excite us. We must do those things every day in order to thrive as an arts organization.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

Theatre is so complex, and I love that complexity. I find math easy, and therefore want nothing to do with it. Theatre was hard, and still is. I never get bored trying to tackle it.

In that complexity, there are two pieces that I try to bring to the participants, both artists and audience, every time I work on a new project. Imagination and connection. Every art form touches on one or the other, but no other art form demands both from the audience. In a great theatrical performance, we ask the people on stage and the people in the audience to imagine together. And I don’t mean the basic pretending that the set is real – I mean true imagination, where a light shining just the right way becomes the moon to everyone in the room, or actors rocking in their seats creates a boat ride right in front of everyone’s eyes. And we do it together. We are social creatures, even us introverts like myself. Theatres are spaces where we can come together and share in an imaginative experience together, all of us changed by the end of it. Unfortunately, this only happens when the show is done well. So my goal every time I work on a show is to create a space where the collective imagination of everyone in the room is engaged.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.indyfringe.org
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/IndyFringe
• Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/paul-daily-director-actor
• Other: https://www.pauldaily.com

Image Credits

All photos by Lisa Walker