Daffy: Interview with Maya Biderman

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

My name is Maya Biderman. I was involved with Daffy as a cast member last year, and I’m a cast member again this year. 

I was a kid who did theatre. My mom worked in musical theatre my whole childhood, and I was born when my parents were touring with a musical. As a very young child, I went to musical theatre camp, I was in my school’s Shakespeare plays, and theatre was a really big part of my life until I was about 12. And then I switched schools and didn’t really get to do it again. Other things came up—life and sports and school—and I loved theatre, but I didn’t make time for it. I was sort of aware of not having it and missing it for many, many years, so when I became a summer camp counselor years later, I took every opportunity to be involved in our very silly plays that we would put on every night...which evolved into not so silly plays that were written by really talented folks, including some past Daffy cast members, who wrote these beautiful scripts and would go on to write Daffy the year before I started at U of T. So, I had this awareness that that could be a next step towards reconnecting with that thing that I had always wanted to do. (Thanks Joseph Kates Rose!) 

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

I think the most memorable part of last year was doing our first full run-through. We had seen each other work on our individual pieces throughout the course of the year—you’re in a scene with someone, and so you practice your lines together, or you're in a song with someone, and so you hear each other’s parts—but we hadn’t seen all of it together, ever. Then all of a sudden, we went from being alone in our bedrooms to putting on a full production with other people who had invested so much of their time and energy into it. It was like all these moving pieces coming together, and it was really flooring. It was so special to just see that combination of everybody’s work.

There’s something really magical about holding space with other people. Just being physically in the same room, you sort of feel people’s energy in a way that you can’t online. I have to say that I’ve been very privileged to be a part of Daffy, because the people who are a part of it—who you share space with when you come together—are so unwaveringly supportive and kind and talented, and it just feels like a privilege to stand in their presence. And that really is a gift, to share things with them in this way. That’s the one thing you maybe don’t get online, and so it feels like such a treasure, now, to have. 

Q: What does Daffy mean to you? 

I think it means a lot of things. Daffy, to me, has been an incredible community of support, where people who are passionate about things—including medicine, but also art and expression—have decided to make each other a priority. We feel very committed to each other, and I feel very committed to this group of people, to working on this thing together over the course of a year. It’s been this wonderful journey that sort of parallels the journey through medicine, sometimes in a very literal way—some of my best friends from Daffy are also my anatomy study group—but also in a more abstract way: Daffy is a community of people that you can check in with, a couple times a week, throughout the year, and that accountability to each other helps see you through the harder parts of this journey. 

Q: Where do you see Daffy in the future?

I hope that Daffy keeps the spirit of being a play that meets people where they’re at. At least in my experience of being a part of Daffy, I have never felt like I could not do something in the play—I could not take on a role, I could not sing a particular song—because of my abilities. It was always about finding a way to make people feel supported and comfortable and able to bring as much of themselves into the play as they possibly can. I hope Daffy keeps that flexibility, because it has been such a treat to see people unearth these secret talents that we never would have known to make space for. I think in the future, Daffy will continue to be this reflection of where medical students are at, and where U of T students are at, because it’s a musical that gets written every year. It really is a reflection of what students in each year are talking about, what songs they think are fun, and I think it’s so special to have that little window of insight into some part of each class’s experience. I look forward to being an alum and seeing other people in Daffy and trying to understand what this could be like for them.