Daffy: Interview with Julia Dmytryshyn

Q: Please introduce yourself to our readers and how you are involved with Daffydil.

My name is Julia Dmytryshyn, I’m a fourth year medical student at U of T. I was involved in Daffy in my first year, where I was in the cast. The story was based on “Mean Girls”, and I played the Regina George character, which was very fun. Then, in second year, I co-directed Daffy with Brendan Kelly.

I love to sing, and that's really what brought me into musical theater. When I was a kid, I would put on performances for my mom all the time in full costume. I just love singing, like I really, really, love it. It’s so funny, I would rather sing on stage in front of a zillion people than have to present a case report—it just doesn't make me nervous. I did that first musical in grade school and I was like, “Wait, I get to be dramatic and dress up in costume? This is the best thing ever.” 

Q: What has been the most memorable part of being in Daffy so far?

Going into medical school, one of my little fears was, “Oh, am I going to lose the other things in my life?” I think a lot of people worry about that kind of thing, no matter what extracurricular activity you do, because it is easy for medical school to take over. But Daffy helped me realize that you can have that balance between extracurricular activities and medical school.

You meet so many people through Daffy, so I was able to really make some nice friendships in first year. When you're studying science in school, it’s nice to also have that more artsy creative framework and musical theater has allowed me to meet a broader range of people. Then in second year, Daffy just became even more special to me. Brendan and I [as co-directors] really felt like we wanted to make it our own. Because I had such a good Daffy experience in first year, I made it my mission to try to make it as good an experience for other people as it was for me.

Q: What does Daffy mean to you? 

Daffy was significant in the fact that it was within medicine. It showed me that 1) it's possible to do medicine and do musical theater at the same time, and 2) there are a lot of connections between acting in musical theater and practicing medicine. For me, acting and being a character is all about putting yourself in someone's shoes and being able to see things from a character's perspective. And I think that's a lot of what practicing medicine is, too. I think that the skill of acting and character development has really translated into the way I practice medicine and how I relate to patients; you might not necessarily agree with what a patient wants to do, but it's all about putting yourself in that patient's shoes and being able to step outside yourself. 

Q; Where do you see Daffy in the future?

I was really impressed with this year's team. Regardless of the challenges that the pandemic presented, they still carried forward with making the show and navigating all those roadblocks. I think it's amazing that they made it into a movie. It's just so nice that they continued the tradition because it has meant so much to so many people over the years—over 100 years, a long time. My dad was in medical school, and he was part of Daffy, so it was an honor to direct it and be part of it. I hope that Daffy can be in-person again. Everyone will tell you this, but the best part of Daffy is show week. It's so hectic, but it's so fun to move into the theater and live there and not do anything else. It's the best, and you get so close with your cast and everything is finally worth it because you get to perform for everyone and all your classmates are like, “That was so good!” 

I'm also looking forward to more original stories. I feel like over the past couple years, the storyline has been really based around medical classes, but I know in previous years, it wasn't always like that; the story was a little bit more outside of medicine, with a bit of medical jokes sprinkled in. I think it would be cool to steer Daffy a little bit farther away from having the story centered around a medical school class. Not that I'm complaining! I loved the Daffy's from the last couple years, but I think that could be like a cool new direction to take it in.