After
49 years of serving as Vancouver’s regional theatre, the Playhouse Theatre Company
officially announced that, following the closing of their co-production of
Catalyst Theatre’s Hunchback on Mar. 10, they would be winding down operations. The
closure comes on the heels of a $1 million Vancouver city council bailout last
year which did little to solve the Company’s longstanding financial decline.
With
the loss of the Playhouse Company, the effects on the arts industry, on
artists, and on theatregoers, not only in Vancouver but across the country, are
devastating. “It’s very sad,” laments Nicolas Harrison, Capilano theatre
instructor and long-time member of the Vancouver theatre community, who has
worked extensively at the Playhouse. “It’s quite disturbing.”
THE
ECONOMY OF THE ARTS
In
what Liz Nicholls of the Edmonton Journal describes as “a frugal, labour-intensive
industry that lives so close to the bone,” the loss of this enormous theatre
company spells disaster for the always-precarious economy of the arts. The
Stratford Festival, one of the largest in the country, with a budget of $60
million, reported a measly $53,000 surplus last year. However, that seems like
raging success compared to Edmonton’s Citadel Theatre, who have an estimated $400,000
deficit on a budget of $11.5 million. Citadel’s executive director Penny Ritco
describes that amount as “manageable” in the Edmonton Journal, underlining the fact that
deficits are considered business as usual in the arts world.
One
of the biggest short-term blows from the Playhouse closure is to Catalyst
Theatre, whose critically-adored original musical Hunchback served as the swan song for
the Playhouse company, leaving Catalyst out $120,000, which artistic director
Eva Cairn is calling “massively significant”, as quoted by Postmedia News, for the small company: “It
represents 20 per cent of our revenue budget this year,” she says. “We've been
slowly building a financial cushion for the last five years. It doesn't put us
in danger, but it's a huge setback. We have less flexibility for the next couple
of years. Instead of the beginning of long-term financial stability, money goes
back to being a huge priority. Instead of the healthy surplus we projected, we're
back into a debt-reduction phase again.”
Even
more critical are the local repercussions: the closing of the Playhouse means
the immediate loss of 15 permanent and around 200 contract jobs. That’s over
200 people who are now out of work, many of whom may leave the city or even the
province to find opportunities elsewhere. Harrison agrees that although
“artists in the Lower Mainland are essentially nomadic anyway, the ones who have
been able to be stationary will have to join that nomadic circuit.”
Although
the failure of last year’s million dollar “bailout” from the City of Vancouver
suggests that the blame is on the company itself for mismanaging funds, that
isn’t necessarily the case. As the Artistic Managing Director of the Playhouse,
Max Reimer, explained in his public defence of the grant, the Playhouse is “the
only established arts organization in Vancouver not ever assisted with an
annual municipal operating grant.”
Capilano
University theatre instructor Stephen Atkins agrees, and points out that “to
say $1 million is really, amortised over the 50 years, $20,000 a year.”
According to Reimer, all the $1 million did was “finally allow us to sit at the
table as an equal with the rest of the organizations.”
To
know that so little was done by the government to help save the company, “I
find the whole thing abhorrent,” says Marie Barnes, a six-year Playhouse season
ticket holder and lifelong supporter of the arts.
CHANGING
ARTISTIC LANDSCAPE
Aside
from the economic consequences, the Playhouse closure will also likely have an
enormous effect on the type and quality of theatre being produced in Vancouver.
Historically, regional theatres such as the Playhouse have served as an outlet
for new works and artists. The Ecstacy of Rita Joe, a seminal piece of
Canadian theatre addressing the issues facing Canadian Aboriginals, premiered
at the Playhouse in 1967. And more recently, another hugely important social
piece relating to Canadian Aboriginal history, the rock opera Beyond Eden was created and premiered as
a Vancouver Playhouse/Theatre Calgary co-production.
The
Playhouse also provided opportunities for smaller companies, such as Catalyst
Theatre with Hunchback, or Electric Company last year with Studies in Motion to share innovative works
with larger audiences.
Barnes
says she was always most amazed by “the variety and surprise of [Playhouse]
Productions.” Furthermore, the Playhouse has been, as reported in the Globe
and Mail, a
“training ground and showcase” for such theatre artists such as the now
widely-renowned playwright Morris Panych.
On
a smaller scale, many companies in and around Vancouver, and throughout B.C.,
have depended on the Playhouse’s extensive non-monetary resources to bring
their own shows to life, including a five-decade stock of props, costumes, and
set pieces that were often rented by other theatres. Costume Designer Nancy
Bryant is quoted in the Globe and Mail saying, “It’s a resource that every theatre
in this province uses. I do a lot of period shows, and without the resource of
these costumes, I can’t do them.”
The Playhouse also loaned out rehearsal space to other companies, which Harrison identified as “one of the hardest things to find when you’re putting on a show.” The loss of the Playhouse will affect theatre throughout the province and across the country, and as Barnes says, “the arts have been snubbed once again.”
WHERE
WILL THEATRE PATRONS GO?
The
sad end of the Playhouse Theatre Company is also a sign of the increased
success of the ArtsClub, since the two were competing for the audience base who
can afford to attend larger productions. Part of this may be due to the
difference in ticket prices (with ArtsClub shows starting at $29 a ticket, and
Playhouse shows at $33 for previews,) but the ArtsClub is still much larger
than the Playhouse, with three theatres and a touring company , and has seen
consistent growth. Quoted in the Vancouver Sun recently, executive director
Howard Jang says, “Even during the economic downturn we found our donations had
increased, so our funding is stable. It’s a tough game out there, but we’re doing
very well.”
Yet
he admits that part of the reason the ArtsClub has seen such success is because
they depend more heavily on mainstream types of theatre compared to the
Playhouse: “We are seeing our mainstay shows doing very well,” Jang says.
“Where we find challenges are in the more difficult works that are not so
well-known.”
Those
“not-so-well-known” works are precisely the kind that the Playhouse has a
history of producing, and especially with new works (the likes of Morris Panych
in his earlier days, as well as original shows already mentioned). Furthermore,
one need only compare some of the plays they have chosen in past seasons to see
the contrast.
For
example, the Playhouse opened their 2010–2011 season with the musical The
Fantasticks;
toward the end of the same season, the ArtsClub mounted a production of Hairspray. Although The
Fantasticks is
far from obscure (it holds the record for longest running musical of all time
with an off-Broadway run of 42 years), it certainly cannot rival the instant
name recognition of Hairspray, likely created in large part by the hugely
successful 2007 film adaptation. The contrast between these two shows is
telling. Given the growth of ArtsClub donations, it’s clear that pleasing the
audience is of greater importance than artistic exploration, as the patrons are
saddled with most of the responsibility of keeping theatres profitable.
As
much as the ArtsClub has grown, it is clear that much of the Playhouse audience
base has turned to them, but what of the smaller companies? Harrison points out
that the smaller companies “are not competing with the same types of shows” and
therefore not for the same audience either, but hopefully some theatre patrons
will “turn to smaller companies, such as Touchstone, Blackbird theatre, or the
Electric Company, to fill the gap.”
However,
he says, nothing can truly replace the Playhouse: “To have a troupe that’s been
around for close to 50 years, you can’t recapture that,” says Barnes. “Sadly, I
think it’s unlikely that smaller theatre groups like Catalyst will thrive
without their help.”
HOLDING
OUT HOPE
Despite all the doom and gloom surrounding this loss, there is still a place for optimism. “The loss of the Playhouse doesn’t mean theatre in Vancouver’s about to go down,” says Vancouver Professional Theatre Alliance Executive Director Eleanor Stacey in the Vancouver Sun. Harrison also thinks there is “potential for something good to come out of” this tragedy. The ArtsClub’s strength, for example, is proof that there is still a hunger for theatre in Vancouver: “I’m grateful,” says Barnes, “that their roots dig deeper and that they’re maybe going to be around longer.”
As
Stephen Atkins puts it so beautifully: “You have to be an optimist to be an
artist. Resistance creates creativity. Things like the lack of theatre space,
the lack of funding, should only fuel what drives an artist to create. We
should be able to create under the direst of circumstances. In countries that
have been ravaged by wars, it’s usually arts and people’s ability to create
that pulls them through.”
//Julian Legere, writer
//Graphics by Alexandra Gordeyeva
//Graphics by Alexandra Gordeyeva
|
