My Net Worth: Wade Jackson, Covert Theatre founder
Wade Jackson. (Image: Supplied)
Wade Jackson is the founder and artistic director of the Covert Theatre in Auckland and The Improv Bandits. He is also a high-performance coach, teaching leadership skills to business executives across New Zealand. He lives with his wife, RNZ newsreader Evie Ashton, and their two children, Sabina and Axel, in Auckland.
Wade as a baby.
I was born and bred in Onehunga, in Auckland. I have an older brother, Brandon, and two younger sisters, Narelle and Roxanne. My father, Don Jackson, was quite entrepreneurial. He owned several businesses, including bakeries and meat delivery services, among others. He passed away when I was 20. My mother, Kaye Jackson, passed away just over six months ago. She was a squash coach and one of New Zealand's top masters champions in squash, as well as a World Masters champion and a New Zealand and Australian masters champion.
My wife, Evie, reads the news on National radio, and she is also the voice heard throughout New Zealand's tunnels. Our daughter, Sabina, is 18 and studying hairdressing, while our son, Axel, is still in high school.
I went to live in Japan as an exchange student for a year when I was 18 years old. I returned to NZ and attended university for a couple of years before returning to Japan to train in martial arts full-time, where I had the snot kicked out of me six nights a week out there. It was very life-changing. I've stayed in touch with my Japanese homestay family, and they even came to our wedding.
Living in Japan as a Pākehā and a minority was quite a cultural shock. Most white New Zealanders don't get to experience what it's like to be a minority when they're 18. Having lived in rural Japan in the early 90s was life-defining for me.
Wade with Colin Mochrie from Whose Line Is It Anyway? and Michael Robinson, his improv teacher (kissing him).
What did I want to do when I was growing up? I still have no idea. However, when I was about 20, I decided to sacrifice security for freedom. I always wanted to do my own thing, and will often zig if others zag and hate being put into a box.
I've never had a job. I've always worked for myself. Growing up, I was quite shy and introverted, and I understood that, but I was always drawn to performing, even from a young age, for my family, which ensured a lot of laughter. And after getting into university, I got into sketch writing and performing, which then led to doing improv. And then I started doing stand-up, so I was doing all three, and it wasn't until I created The Improv Bandits in '97 and we did a festival in '99 that we realised we were really good.
I auditioned for Whose Line Is It Anyway? in 1999, and then we had shows produced for us in LA. I also got to audition for a Jim Carrey film. The stepping stone wasn't until a few years later, when I was sitting on the set of a Cliff Curtis movie called Spooked, that I came to the realisation I enjoyed improvising and the live performance more than acting on screen. I remembered Michael Caine's line that, "I act for free, I charge them lots of money for all the waiting around". In 2001, I founded the Covert Theatre as I was now serious about improv comedy.
Wade and his wife, Evie.
I completed my undergraduate degree at the University of Auckland, majoring in both English and Japanese, and then pursued a postgraduate degree in drama in 1997. I returned to school about a decade later and pursued a post-graduate degree in health science at AUT, which I started after entering the corporate world. And it was obvious, because every actor was an amateur psychologist, right? I mean, your job is to recreate the human experience on stage. And I was getting into the corporate world, teaching leadership, self-leadership, creativity, presentation coaching, and team building. And they're asking, "Are you a psychologist?" I'm like, "No, this is just what we do on stage".
I met Evie after she attended a show at the first Covert Theatre, located on Karangahape Rd. She came to watch a friend who was performing, and we met after the show that she watched in about 2003. We got married at the end of 2004.
The kids and I haven't heard Evie's voice in the tunnels yet. You only hear it when there's an emergency. She comes over with a calming, soothing voice. She tells drivers what to do when they're in the Waterview tunnel. If there's an accident, it's her voice that is broadcast. I'm still yet to hear it, and I don't want to either, because that would mean something bad had happened.
I played rugby and squash, the squash being Mum's influence on me growing up. In rugby, I was the classic player who started on the wing and ended up in the front row. I started out fast, and as I got bigger, I became slower, and the coach went, "Mate, you're in the front row".
The Covert Theatre is a hungry beast. Time and energy-wise, it takes a lot. This is the second iteration of the venue. We signed the lease on Sept 1, 2019, and my wife kindly agreed that we could cover the initial costs. So we did, and then it went to open in March 2020. Of course, the whole world shut down, so we didn’t open till June 2020. We spent the first two years in and out of lockdowns. It's been a fight for survival, and we've crawled through the worst of it. But any arts organisation in Auckland is never out of the woods, ever.
In January, we shifted out to Piha from Sandringham. Walking on the beach and walking through the forest has been very healing. I obviously went through a tough time with my mum passing away suddenly, at the end of last year. There has been some healing going on with that. But hanging out with family has probably been the best thing to do in Piha.
Wade with Wayne Brady and fellow Improv Bandit, Mark Scott.
The improv scene in New Zealand is really healthy. It's really growing. Worldwide, improv has undergone a genuine Renaissance. However, New Zealand improv is more immature and less understood than, say, the US, where The Second City in Chicago, the famous improv and sketch venue, has been operating for over 60 years. We’ve been going for over 20 years.
We loosely base ourselves on The Second City in that we produce all our own shows. We're not a venue for hire at night. We have approximately 80 performing members, a growing team, and a youth outreach programme that we'll be introducing to schools later this year. This programme aims to teach resilience using improv to young Kiwis, building confidence and resilience in our future generations. However, the operation is run on the smell of an oily rag; every dollar counts. We're a charitable trust, and the whole idea is for the Covert Theatre to outlive me and serve future generations. Our purpose is to enhance human connection through play. That's what we're about. We have shows on Friday and Saturday – two shows a night and workshops, rehearsals and private shows throughout the week.
I also help executives become better senior leaders by harnessing the power of storytelling, enabling them to bring their purpose, vision, and strategies to life through the power of stories. I'll also work one-on-one with some executives, coaching them to improve their performance in their roles, enhance their communication skills, and promote their overall well-being.
We definitely need more leaders to become better communicators, as leaders spend more time communicating than on any other activity. The power of storytelling is about connection. It's about making intangible concepts tangible and real for people. There's a lot of fear in the corporate world, so one of the things I do is help people create that kind of psychological safety, so that they can be creative and innovative. You can't have innovation in a low trust environment, because people are just going to be covering their butt and not willing to share their ideas and not willing to be vulnerable. In terms of high performance, it takes a lot of courage, vulnerability, and openness to allow safety and for trust to grow. Then everything flows on from that.
As far as leading at the theatre, my leadership style is more visionary. I have a strong vision. I wouldn’t say I’m always detail-oriented; I’m more of a big picture thinker, but I run a tight ship and have been fortunate to surround myself with great people. I like to hold firm beliefs loosely. For example, we just had an artistic meeting, and rather than everything bottlenecking with me, I have a team of five who, together, bring the vision of the theatre to life. Two of them brought broader suggestions, and it was like, "Yep, let's just give that a go". I like the idea of lighting lots of little fires, seeing which ones work, and then pouring the gasoline on those.
My greatest success has been having two healthy children and celebrating 20 years of marriage. Because, you know, relationships are hard work. I'm very proud of that and the growth that we've had together as a family. And then, of course, navigating the theatre through the tough times of the covid-19 pandemic.
My biggest failure is all the mini failures along the way. Inside marriage and business, you're failing all the time. The lovely thing about improv is that it has become like my spiritual practice, because the essence of improv is about connection, and it's built on the idea of embracing failure. So you're failing on stage all the time, and that's fine, as long as you can let go of that as fast as you can.
The discipline and perseverance that I have developed through martial arts training in Japan are two of my superpowers. But just like anything, your greatest strength can be your greatest weakness. So, knowing when to give up and when to quit, rather than just constantly gritting your way through it, I think, is important. Living in Japan has also taught me that their way of thinking is very different from the Western mindset. It's much more holistic and systemic, as opposed to reductionist and specialised. I now look at things holistically and see everything as connected.
I'm fluent in Japanese. I used to be bilingual, as I used to think and dream in Japanese, but now I'm just more fluent. I can pretty much say whatever needs to be said, but it's like anything, if you don't use it, you lose it. I also speak a little German, but don't let my wife hear me say that. I did a couple of years of it at high school. But I never let her forget that I had fooled some German people into thinking I was German with my 27 phrases that I could say. She, however, is fluent in Spanish and knows German, French and te Reo.
I've a Japanese proverb tattooed on my leg that translates to ‘Both the path of the scholar and the warrior', meaning that in life you need both education and the ability to take action.