Discover why this grad's theatre degree helped her in the court house
Sukhpreet Sangha graduated in 2010 from a joint honours program in Theatre and Performance and English Literature and Rhetoric. She currently works at Law in Action Within Schools (LAWS) helping youth in Toronto public schools further their education.
What are your main job responsibilities in your current position?
I currently work as a newcomer program manager at Law in Action Within Schools, which is a non-profit organization run at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Law in partnership with York University. My primary responsibilities include managing workshops and teaching newcomer students in eight different Toronto public high schools, as well as running summer programming and two mentorship programs for alumni and high school students.
How has your Theatre and Performance degree influenced your career trajectory?
My theatre degree has been useful through most of my work.
As a lawyer, I often did barrister’s work, running hearings at administrative tribunals. I also practiced as a criminal defence lawyer and as a poverty lawyer. I found that in law, work is a type of performance. I have been able to in a sense stage manage getting to court houses and so, in that way, I found my theatre degree has taught me so many skills that are transferable and desired in a variety of disciplines.
In my current work, I found that teaching and leaving practice is also a type of performance. I have been able to do all of these jobs confidently with some level of expertise in part because of my training as an actor in the program. The theatre program teaches students to work in an interdisciplinary manner and put on their own show. We are also taught to engage in a variety of work, specialized or not, which has helped guide me through the breadth of work I have accomplished.
. . . Work is a type of performance
What are your most significant career accomplishments?
I value my accomplishments in different ways. I appeared at all levels of court in Ontario as well as appearing at the Supreme Court of Canada, and the Ontario Court of Justice. When I moved on to practicing poverty law, rather than being a defence lawyer, that kind of breath of litigation experience is meaningful to your career as a litigator.
I think what’s most significant to me truly as a career accomplishment is transitioning out of practice and finding work that I find more fulfilling and mentally healthy and meaningful to me. Being able to teach and run other programming for high school students assisting them in committing to graduating from secondary schools and considering post-secondary school is a significant and meaningful accomplishment for me.
Tell us about a memorable or meaningful learning experience from your time in the Drama program?
One of my most memorable learning experiences during my time in the Drama and Performance program was when I had the opportunity to participate in a selected studies class, where I was introduced to the work of Samuel Beckett.
I found that Beckett’s work really resonated with me and appealed to me in a lot of different ways. Largely, in his engagement with deeply philosophical questions about the meaning of life and the nature of life and what it feels like to be a human living on this earth.
His work influences my work as a co-artistic director at a small theatre. I find most of my writing influenced by his ideas and works in one way or another.
What is a key piece of advice that you would share with current students in the Drama department?
Negotiate.
I’ve learned as a lawyer a lot about negotiating and the power that a person, who has been selected for a job or some other opportunity like a role in a theatrical production, the power you have when you’re in that position. Obviously, when you’re starting out it’s more limited, but at the same time, I think that there can be a tendency to undersell ourselves, especially as so-called talent. Especially, as people who are students and who are younger. In many ways that’s unfortunately built into theatrical production, which I would like to see changed.