Newsletter
December 2007 / January 2008
by Brandon Moore
Communications Coordinator
As audition notices increasingly include lines about actors "consenting to a police check" alongside the guidelines for résumés and lengths of monologues, more and more artists and theatres seem to be seeking information about what they must do—and what they can do—when they are working with young people.
Under the Education Act (Ontario Regulation 521/01), school boards in Ontario are required to "collect a personal criminal history of every individual who is, (a) an employee of the board; or (b) a service provider at a school site of the board." Service provider includes touring productions, artists-in-residence, and workshop leaders who come into contact with students.
To comply with this requirement, in 2002 the associations of Ontario school boards established a not-for-profit corporation, the Ontario Education Services Corporation (OESC / oesc-cseo.org) with the mandate of "facilitating the police record check process on behalf of all Ontario school boards." OESC's Police Record Checks are conducted by the Oxford Police Service (who was awarded the project after it was tendered to all Ontario police services) through the RCMP’s National CPIC Database and includes: "all records of Criminal Code (Canada) convictions; all pardoned sexual offences; all records of convictions under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act; all records of convictions under the Narcotic Control Act; all records of convictions under the Food and Drugs Act; all undertakings to enter into a Surety to Keep the Peace; any Restraining Orders issued under the Criminal Code (Canada) or the Family Law Act; and all outstanding warrants and charges."
According to the OESC, "information regarding a police record is only revealed to the individual—never to third parties." Individuals with police records are adjudicated to the standard: "this individual, based on his or her police record and further information obtained during the adjudication process, represents an acceptable/unacceptable risk to the safety of students or other vulnerable persons."
Individuals who meet the OESC standard are issued an Identification Card. Full details of the OESC process and fees are available on their website, or by contacting them directly.
Beyond the requirements of the Education Act, some theatres who operate youth programs have felt the need to develop policies for conducting police checks for their volunteers or employees. When developing such a policy, theatres should consider how the records will be kept, how long it will take to process an application, how expiry dates would be monitored, who will pay the cost of the check, and how the theatre would handle a check with a negative finding.
The OESC will provide its service to organizations who don't fall under the requirement of the Education Act. If your organization is an employer of artists or has volunteers who work with children, and the organization would be co-ordinating the collection and distribution of the forms as well as payment, the OESC requires a signed contract. If the artist is an individual or an independent contractor, the artist would need to contact OESC directly.
If you do not fall under the Act, you can also have the checks done by your local police force. If you do, make sure that you distinguish the kind of police check you want. There are routine "criminal background checks" or "clearance letters" that involves the police force searching the RCMP databases. These are frequently sought for employment and immigration purposes. However, there is also a much more extensive "vulnerable sector screening" which is commonly sought by social service agencies, and other organizations working with youth, such as sports clubs. Consult with your local police force to find out what kind of screening services they provide, the cost, and the extent of the screenings.
by Tim Chapman
Professional Theatre Coordinator
Pat Bradley has been the Theatre Officer for the Ontario Arts Council for six and a half years. Prior to that, she was Executive Director of the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres (PACT) for nine years. Pat is also Research Manager for the Ontario Arts Council. She sees a great deal of theatre both in Toronto and across the province. So I wanted to talk to Pat generally about theatre in Ontario. I was seeking both information and what she felt were some positive developments for Ontario professional theatre.
The Ontario Arts Council is currently undertaking a new strategic plan to be released in the spring of 2008. Pat specified that their last Strategic Plan, which took effect in 2003, identified the following primary goals in funding theatres through annual operating grants: The Theatre Organizations program fulfills the goals of the OAC's Strategic Plan supporting excellence in the arts, regional activity, linguistic and cultural diversity and Aboriginal identity. As well, the Program assesses theatre organizations for their impact on all of the following: the art form, the artists, their audience and their community(ies). It is not simply a question of artistic excellence, it is also finding an audience for the artistic vision and encouraging arts education and public participation. Without an audience, Pat states a theatre is just "wanking."
The conversation then continued on the subject of funding. Pat was encouraged about the OAC's increased funding, first in 2003 and now again in 2007. From 1997 to 2002, the OAC's budget stayed the same, but 2003 marked the beginning of a two-year increase in Council funding. One example of a theatre that benefited from the increased funding was the Thousand Islands Playhouse in Gananoque. It is considered a key theatre in Eastern Ontario as it met all of the criteria identified in the strategic plan. Their season had grown to 27 weeks from originally ten weeks in 1982. In 2004, the Firehall Theatre was completed to complement the larger Springer Theatre. It allowed the seasonal programming to increase to eight productions. Annual attendance grew to nearly 60,000 and the theatre's regional economic impact was $15 million annually. The production of Canadian plays increased to 87% of seasonal programming. Also, in Toronto, Soulpepper received very large increases beginning in 2003, as OAC funding was able to catch up with the company's growth.
In 2007, the Ontario government's $15 million investment in the Ontario Arts Council translates into a 37.5% increase that will take OAC's overall annual budget from $40 million to $55 million by 2009/10. All operating programs will see up to an 8% increase in this first year that should grow to 30% by 2009/10. Funding to the theatre operating program increased by 8%. Total funding to theatre organizations in Ontario has gone from $4,478,786 in 2001/02 to $7,321,808 in 2007/08. The number of Ontario theatres receiving annual operating funding has gone from 50 in 2001/02 to 64 in 2006/07 to an estimated 70 in 2007/08. If you are looking for positive developments in Ontario theatre, the figures above paint a prettier picture.
Two companies that saw significant 2007 funding increases commensurate with their growing impact on their communities were Native Earth and Obsidian Theatres. The new funding also allows the Council to bring some theatres from project funding into annual operating funding. Pat mentioned a number of theatres now receiving annual operating grants, including Carlos Bulosan Theatre, Turtle Gals Performance Ensemble and fu-GEN Asian Canadian Theatre in Toronto, MT Space in Kitchener, Suitcase In Point Theatre Company in St. Catharines, and Talk Is Free Theatre in Barrie.
Pat pointed out funding for project applications in theatre is still far more in need. Theatres that apply for project funding have to apply separately for every project they produce. Currently, only 19% of the request level of project applications actually received funding; 81% of the demand was not met! Project applications have increased 64% from around 110 annually in 2000 to 180 in 2007. This means that many good applications are denied not because they are judged unworthy, but simply because funds run out quickly having already been given out to applications judged more outstanding. Still the fact that more theatres have been able to move up to the annual operating level means there has been some movement for younger theatres to move up the funding ladder.
I spoke to Pat about noticing, in my tenure thus far with Theatre Ontario, the vast number of lovely theatres in Ontario who are largely positioning themselves as presenters and not producers. Specifically I mentioned a ring of these theatres in the suburbs around Toronto: Mississauga, Brampton, Newmarket, Markham. Pat observed that many of these theatres are municipally-owned and often the municipality is looking for the theatres to earn their keep and operate profitably. She also pointed me in the direction of a brief piece on the OAC's website entitled "Who Gets OAC Grants?" It looks at success rates of grant applications from eight regions of Ontario. The success rate is the proportion of applications that receive a grant. It was interesting to note that the South Central region -- the Greater Toronto Area surrounding the city of Toronto -- has the lowest success rate of all Ontario regions. I recommend readers have a look at this article available to anyone. Go to arts.on.ca, and look under the menu heading "Lists of Recipients."
That brings me to Pat's other hat as Research Manager. The OAC's website has a great deal of public information, statistical and otherwise, dealing with artists and arts organizations, audiences and arts participation, economic impacts, human resources in the arts, among others. Look under Publications first for an extensive menu which includes Research. I realize this will come as no surprise to many of you. But I am certain there are also many like myself who have not taken the time to browse what information is available online.
Before my time with Pat was up, we quickly talked about some other positive happenings currently in Ontario theatre: the really successful 2007 season at 4th Line Theatre; two very good seasons in a row at Sudbury Theatre Centre; the OAC now having a staff member available in Thunder Bay; the Great Canadian Theatre Company's new theatre building in Ottawa; and, also in Ottawa, the growth of the Magnetic North Festival. Of course, there are other good stories we did not even get to. Toronto now has an opera house. Soulpepper opened their lovely new home last year.
Professional theatre will always face the problem of under-funding and the tricky balancing act of artistic vision versus the business bottom-line. Yet professional theatre in this province continues to grow and prosper. People will always need to come together. "The roar of the grease paint, the smell of the crowd."
by John Goddard
Executive Director
I have just passed the one-year mark as Executive Director and it is therefore natural that I have been doing some stocktaking.
It has been overall a good year for me and I think Theatre Ontario as well, and I am proud of the achievements we have made, or—at the minimum—the progress towards achievements in a number of areas.
Theatre Ontario, which has a long history of political activism, has as part of its mandate, the responsibility to advocate on behalf of our Art. This summer we re-entered that arena with our chairing the Provincial Arts Service Organizations (PASO) political questionnaire initiative, ARTSELECTS '07. Our office was instrumental in formulating the format and content of the questionnaire, as well as the surprisingly frustrating task of compiling the responses. This was only a start and I intend it to signal a return to the field of activism, both at the provincial as well as the municipal level.
This year we have edited a new anthology of Ontario one-act plays. Playwrights Canada Press asked us to collaborate on another volume after the successful Seven Short Plays From Theatre Ontario of 2003 and we happily took on the challenge. From nearly 100 submissions, the selection committee was able to come up with eight plays we thought should be included in a new volume. This edition (title pending) will be released at the Theatre Ontario Festival in North Bay next May. It was a fascinating experience for the selection committee and we all left the table pleased with the healthy state of playwriting in Ontario.
I have spent a fair amount of time this past year trying to get to meet as many of you as possible, and have travelled to Ottawa, Sarnia, Embro, Sault Ste. Marie, Newmarket, Belleville, Peterborough, the north shore of Lake Erie, Petrolia, and of course, Stratford and Niagara-on-the-Lake. It has been a wonderful time meeting so many of our community, and I have come home impressed by the talent, energy, and creativity of our members.
Many activities this year will not bear fruit until later, but we have laid some strong groundwork for the future. Our Education Committee is working on some new initiatives coordinating with partners in other areas of the province in order to help elementary school teachers be more comfortable with the Drama expectations; and to encourage secondary school students to go out and experience theatre. These things are in progress but I feel we are heading in the right direction, and have a lot of support from others in the field.
We are working with a group of arts organizations to explore the idea of a National Arts Day, one designed to draw attention at all levels of government of the strength and breadth of arts activities in this country and the important role they play in everyone's life. Some of you participated in a questionnaire this fall which will help us fine-tune this idea and allow us to make it more tangible a concept.
We have also started a Professional Theatre Committee on the Board so that we can look into the ways that we can strengthen our association with the professional wing of our mandate. Theatre Ontario has always been seen as a strong resource for the emerging professional with our OAC-funded PTTP and YTTP grants and our Getting Started and Self-Start seminars. But we are looking for ways that we can help the professional theatre companies -- especially those outside Toronto.
There have also been some disappointments. We introduced a new training opportunity—weekend workshops in a mini-holiday format to be held around the province as an alternative to a week-long residential summer course in Southern Ontario. While we got a lot of support from the Board and our members, we got only one actual participant! Back to the drawing board! The feedback we are getting is that the concept was good but we made some mistakes in the delivery. We are working on correcting our errors so that this module can work in the future.
And, after seven years of strong faithful and beyond-the-call performance, Andrea Emmerton decided to retire—for the second time to start her third career. We are not exactly sure what it will be, but we strongly suspect that Theatre will be there somewhere. After her many years working at Theatre Ontario, Andrea has made friends across this province all of whom I know will miss her dearly and regret her leaving, as do we. But all things must come to an end, so we wish Andrea good luck in her next career and are very thankful that she gave Theatre Ontario seven years of unquestioned support and loyalty.
In closing, I want to thank the many members and friends of Theatre Ontario who have welcomed me so heartily into the organization and I look forward to making many more friends this coming year. Thank you all!
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