Newsletter
Spring 2007

by Tim Chapman
Professional Theatre Coordinator

Rehearsal time.  Is it me, or do you rarely hear it discussed in the theatre world?  Certainly the media never talk about it as an issue.  I am sure it is a topic that comes up between actors, between artistic directors and general managers, or between the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres and the Canadian Actors' Equity Association.  But I almost never hear it discussed openly in the theatre community or between theatre-goers.  So I am attempting to start a discussion.  Recently a theatre friend, out of the blue, asked me what I thought was the biggest problem facing our professional theatre community.  She thought it was finding an audience.  Off the top of my head, I mentioned a lack of rehearsal time.  More and more often the amount of rehearsal time is a factor when I see a show.  In the past year, more than once my response to a show has been either "I liked it.  Given three weeks of rehearsal, I thought they had come a long way."  Or "I really think the show need another week of rehearsals.  It's an ambitious show and they are not quite there yet."

After a while, I started to believe that both my friend's answer and my answer were interconnected.  I worked as a publicist at the Tarragon Theatre for many years.  Certainly, after 1995, attendance was rarely a problem.  But any theatre has its ups and downs, its successful shows and its, shall I say, "less successful" shows.  And sometimes an established theatre can have an entire "less successful" season; an independent theatre company can have two or three "less successful" shows in a row.  When the inevitable talk turns to how can we increase our attendance, there are usually two options which are first considered.  One is to make the programming more palatable to audiences.  More comedy, more musicals, more controversy, or dare I say, more fluff.  But how far do you go in that direction?  Richard Rose, Artistic Director of the Tarragon Theatre, says you then have to ask, "What is the function of theatre?  Are you content with froth or do you want more?"

The other option is often more marketing.  Usually the corollary of that is to throw more money at marketing.  My years in marketing taught me that if the majority of attenders do not like your show or even are ambivalent in their response, no matter how much you increase or change your marketing, you are fighting a losing battle.  There may be many reasons for their dislike or ambivalence but I would ask how useful is it to try to turn that response around?  Maybe you have to look at the quality of the shows you are marketing.  It could be the choice of plays but there are no guarantees that good or even classic plays will be successful finding chemistry with a large enough audience if the production is mediocre.  Maybe you have to look at how you are producing the plays.  Maybe you have to look at the amount of rehearsal time being given to a show.

The opening of a show is almost a point of no return.  It may improve — problems may get fixed — but almost always, the preview period and the opening week will determine the attendance pattern of a show.  Rehearsals will be over.  (At least directors rarely schedule any more rehearsals unless an actor has to be replaced.)  Choices have been made.  Reviews will be in.  Many from the theatre community will have seen the show.  If the overall response to a show is poor by the end of the opening week, it is not impossible for that show to end up being successful, but I would argue that success is highly improbable.  So I would like to talk about longer rehearsal periods as an option to create more consistently good theatre.  And I would like to posit that good theatre will usually find an audience.  If the run of the show is too short, that may not happen initially.  But then that show can be revived for a longer run the next time.

Patricia Hamilton has been acting professionally for nearly fifty years.  She is currently a member of the Shaw Festival's acting company.  In the mid-eighties she started a theatre company, Masterclass Theatre, which later metamorphosed into the Advanced Actors Workshop at the Banff Centre.  One of her goals in starting Masterclass Theatre was longer rehearsal periods.  Shows rehearsed for six weeks.  Later at Banff, sometimes there were seven weeks of rehearsals.  The 1992 Dora Award for Best Production went to the Advanced Actors' Workshop's production of Chekhov's The Three Sisters.  "You can do a play in three weeks of rehearsing if you are content with a surface treatment in which the actors have learned their lines and know their blocking," says Hamilton, "but there are no shortcuts if you are attempting to create art.  And to quote Robert Lepage, 'we are making art, not shoes.'  You need to go deeper.  You need thinking time, time to try different choices, time for a show to percolate and mature, time to show an audience what theatre can really do.  Good acting does not come instantly."

In the next issue of our newsletter, I will go on to explore this issue with three artistic directors — Daniel Brooks, Richard Rose and Albert Schultz — and its possible implications for theatre's funders and audience.

by John Goddard

I have just returned from a week in Sarnia where I had the pleasure to see all of the finalists for the Western Ontario Drama League Festival, and what a pleasure it was.  Five great shows were presented by five strong and talented companies in the beautiful Imperial Theatre of Sarnia.  The hospitality was warm and welcoming, and Jane Janes, Richard Poore and their committee did a terrific job with their WODL Festival.  I wasn't around last year for the Theatre Ontario Festival in Sarnia but based on my experience this year, I bet it was a week not to be missed!

The Imperial Theatre is owned and operated by the community theatre group, Theatre Sarnia.  It is a beautiful facility: fully-equipped, spacious and comfortable, well-planned and laid-out, and — most important — a financial success.  Theatre Sarnia not only produce their own and other community events here but they also run it successfully as a presentation house for professional touring shows.

I was reminded of my visit in February to the Peterborough Theatre Guild and their theatre.  Again, it is owned and operated by the theatre group itself and is designed and operated as a theatre (not a theatre – hyphen – something else).  Both facilities have rehearsal halls, set shops, storage space and comfortable lobbies and auditoria.

These groups are to be congratulated on their determination and long-range planning and lots of hard work to accomplish their dreams of having their own theatre facilities.

And at the same time we hear that the Capital Theatre and Arts Centre in Windsor has declared bankruptcy after failing to get last minute financial support from the city.  I don't think we have heard the last from this quarter and I hope a solution is found to preserve this heritage facility and performance venue.

Many years ago Sandy Tulloch recognized the problem of Arts Facilities across this province and started to investigate the situation and work toward a solution.  Her many years of very hard work have finally produced ArtsBuild Ontario, which is about to become incorporated and has just hired an Executive Director (albeit part-time.)  ArtsBuild Ontario's mandate is to provide funds to medium-sized Ontario arts organizations for capital projects (not operating funds) by way of grants or interest-free loans.  It has been a long journey, and it is not at its destination yet.  As more and more people come on board (and literally on the Board!) and recognize the validity and sense of Sandy’s vision, ArtsBuild Ontario still does not have a penny to help the Ontario arts infrastructure.

But things are starting to happen.  ArtsBuild has caught the attention of the provincial government and the Minister of Culture, and movement is being detected.  But I do feel that the bigger battle, and the best chance for success is at the municipal, or if you will, the community level.  That is where Sarnia and Peterborough made their greatest effort and scored their greatest success.  If we are going to get satisfactory arts facilities across this province, it is going to be done one community at a time.  Because it is the local community which benefits and it is the local community which must be the driving force and impetus.

It seems to me that, speaking in general terms, and in the knowledge that there are glaring exceptions to my statement, for the most part local community politicians have no trouble understanding the benefits of providing sports facilities to their communities but cannot understand the equivalent need for cultural space.  If every community in Ontario which has a fully-equipped hockey arena, also had a fully-equipped performance space, I believe our music, theatre and dance communities would be healthier and more vital than they are.  If every community which had a municipally-owned curling rink also had a publicly-funded gallery, our artists and artisans would be better valued, better known and more numerous.

I recommend to you The Defiant Imagination by Max Wyman.  The book's central thrust is "the belief that culture, like health and education, is an unassailable human right, essential to the social and moral well-being of the society of the future."

Ancient civilizations understood this concept.  The Greeks and Romans knew that for a healthy society, just as for a healthy individual, you needed to have a healthy mind in a healthy body — mens sana in corpore sano.  You need to feed and stimulate the mind and the soul just as you must exercise the body.  But it seems to me that somehow that very important part of civilization has been left behind.  I think it is a lesson we all have to hammer home to our local politicians — the arts, alive and prosperous in a community, make not only good financial sense, but more importantly, create a society with meaning, and soul.

by Andrea Emmerton

The Oxford Dictionary defines "community" as a group of people living in the same locality or having the same religion, race, profession, interests, etc; joint ownership.  You are part of that "community."  Whether it is performing, working backstage, sweeping the floor, being on the executive, showing patrons to their seats—all of you have a passion for theatre.  For some, the involvement is limited.  Perhaps you only have so much time to give, but still want to participate fully.  For others, it becomes a way of life: taking all of the courses that are available; seeing a lot of theatre; continually working to improve; and being involved in as many productions as possible.  Within many theatre companies, both types of members exist, and they should.  But sometimes it isn’t easy for them to get along.

So how do you make it work?  What can be done to ensure that everyone who wants to volunteer their time and energy is able to do so?  Perhaps it means that directors and producers have to be willing to step outside their safety zone, by taking a chance on new or inexperienced members.  The more experienced members could mentor new people.  What a great opportunity for the "learners" to share their new-found knowledge, ideas, and excitement with those people, who — for many reasons — are unable to attend workshops or participate in courses.  Theatre is, after all, a collective art form and when members are working and learning together, then the quality of work can only improve, which means that the audiences will also benefit.

Whether it is a "hobby" or "something you can't live without," there is a place in community theatre for everyone who wants to be there.  Your contribution is to be celebrated and valued, no matter how large or small.  So, be patient with the members who contribute to one show during the season, and remember to acknowledge others who are "driven" to be involved in everything that is going on.  As the saying goes, "it takes a village to raise a child."  A theatre company is like that village.  It takes all of the members working together to produce a season and to communicate with each other and the audience.  And really, isn't that what it is all about?