Nestruck on Theatre: Tight times in Canadian theatre as 2023 comes to a close

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I heard from a few readers who thought I was a bit of a grinch for raising questions — cheekily, I had hoped — about the recent spate of theatre extensions in Toronto in my last newsletter. Fair enough.

So let me be clearer with the point I want to make this week, before Nestruck on Theatre goes on hiatus until 2024.

While I don’t want to take away anything from any individual show’s success, I do want to remind theatregoers — as the last chance for charitable tax receipts for the year looms, hint, hint — that the performing arts organizations putting on productions they love remain in a especially financially challenging time.

Even those outlier theatre companies that have seen attendance fully return to or exceed 2019 levels are dealing with extra ongoing COVID-19 costs (cancellations, still; or additional cast in order to avoid them), overall inflation (lumber’s a huge one for set building) and all manners of other worldwide turmoil diverting private funds elsewhere as public funding for the arts returns to its pre-pandemic plateau.

Here are a few very recent examples of how times are tight:

1. Blue Bridge Repertory Theatre in Victoria, BC, is leaving The Roxy, the venue it bought a decade ago, then sold and leased back in 2021. An e-mail from the theatre company sent out last week said the classics-oriented company would be moving out by December 31 and was selling off assets to “satisfy our debt in the community.”

Founded by Brian Richmond - who passed the torch as artistic director just under a year ago - Blue Bridge has never seemed on terribly solid financial ground; it averted bankruptcy in 2017 after striking a deal with creditors, the Times-Colonist reported.

In its statement last week, Blue Bridge cited slow-returning audiences and “extraordinary expenses related to the pandemic” as reasons for its current financial troubles. It has not cancelled the rest of its season, but is “actively exploring other venues in town” to present its 2024 shows.

2. Shakespeare in the Ruins artistic director Rodrigo Beilfuss put up a blog post this week saying his Winnipeg theatre company was “in a precarious financial position”.

”Governmental and foundation funding for Covid relief has ceased; inflation is rampant; operational costs have never been higher; building materials and facility rental fees have skyrocketed as well,” Beilfuss wrote, in a fundraising plea to his patrons. He suggested his company’s still unannounced 2024 plans were up in the air, dependent on donations - despite what had been an artistically successful 2023 season that often saw sell-out shows.

3. Soulpepper, one of the two biggest not-for-profit theatre companies in Toronto, has quietly taken a couple of its shows planned for March and April off sale: A Doll’s House, in Tanika Gupta’s adaptation that transposes the action to 1879 Calcutta; and Ladies of the Canyon, a concert created by Hailey Gillis and Raha Javanfar.

I only discovered this last week as I was planning to put Miriam Fernandes’ production of A Doll’s House in an article about theatre I was excited to see in 2024.

Gideon Arthurs, Soulpepper’s executive director, tells me A Doll’s House is being postponed - hopefully, just to next fall - and Ladies of the Canyon has pivoted to a workshop for the time being. He says these moves are due to a combination of factors, but struggles with sales and fundraising this fall (after what he says was a strong start to 2023) played a role in the decision.

(As a sidenote, it’s easier for a company like Soulpepper to look at up-to-date numbers and decide to rejig its schedule now than it used to be, due to pandemic-accelerated changes in how people buy tickets. “We’re predominantly single-ticket sales, and people are booking in a four-week window before the show,” says Arthurs, who adds that 55 percent of his audience has been “new to file” this year, with an average age that has dropped from 60-something to around 43.)

There was a lot of talk about a full-blown crisis in theatre in the United States in 2023 - with an American Theatre article from the summer summing up the industry’s contraction that included layoffs, season “pauses” and emergency fundraising.

We are still not in the same kind of panic in the performing arts in Canada, where public funding plays a bigger role (though not as big as in Europe, of course). “I don’t think there’s some kind of collapse of the performing arts,” says Arthurs. “But I do think organizations are being called upon to deal with increasingly complicated and macro forces that really make it difficult to move forward - especially after two years of awfulness.”

Executive directors head for the exits

This morning came news that Camilla Holland, executive director of the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, will be leaving her job in June 2024 after 13 years with Winnipeg’s number one theatre company. She’s part of what looks like an executive exodus at the moment.

Earlier this month, Toronto’s Tarragon Theatre announced Andrea Vagianos, managing director for the last six years, was also leaving at the end of the season, then Young People’s Theatre in Toronto similarly announced that Nancy Webster would be stepping down as executive director after 15 years.

I can only imagine how exhausting these behind-the-scenes jobs have been over the past few years amid the unprecedented challenges of the pandemic for the performing arts.

It will be interesting to see who wants to step into those shoes at the moment. There was a little bit of news on that front last week, as Alberta Theatre Projects announced that Peita Luti, formerly director of business operations for Quest Theatre, would be its next executive director. Luti will be running the Calgary theatre company - which has had been through a particularly tumultuous (and tragic) few years - alongside recently appointed artistic director Haysam Kadri.

What’s opening this week across Canada

Parlez-vous francais? If so, I have a couple recommendations.

Féministe pour Homme, Rébecca Déraspe’s Québécoise adaptation of French playwright Noémie de Lattre solo stage woman-ifesto, is back at Usine C in Montreal from December 12 to 17. I caught it in one of its previous sold-out engagements - and Sophie Cadieux, one of my stage faves, gives a dynamic, funny performance not to be missed.

Meanwhile, in Ottawa, Robert Lepage’s Le projet Riopelle is at the National Arts Centre from December 14 to 17. I wrote about this four-hour critical biography of the Quebecois abstract expressionist earlier this year.

If you don’t speak French, some English-language theatre companies in Canada are still putting on plays in translation from that other official language. Benevolence, Fanny Britt’s Governor-General’s Literary Award for Drama-winning 2012 dark comedy about a lawyer returning to his hometown is on stage to December 17.

And speaking solo feminist shows, Rachel Cairns’ Hypothetical Baby is on in Toronto until December 17 at the Tarragon Theatre, presented by the Howland Company. Cairns, in addition to being one of the country’s most original actors, is also the host of a Aborsh, a podcast about abortion in Caanda - which is also the subject of this play directed by Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster.

What the Globe and Mail is reviewing in Toronto this week

42nd Street, in a British touring production directed by Jonathan Church, is being presented at the Princess of Wales Theatre by Mirvish Productions to January 21, 2024. It opens Thursday.

Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812, which runs to January 21 as well, has had to delay its media night - originally scheduled for Wednesday - due to COVID-19 cases in the cast. The Crow’s Theatre and Musical Stage Company co-pro of this musical adaptation of (a sliver of) War and Peace now opens to critics on Friday.

Pride and Prejudice* (*sort of), a winner of the Olivier Award for best comedy, is in Toronto at the CAA Theatre “direct from its triumph in the West End,” courtesy of Mirvish Productions, until January 14, 2024. It opens Saturday.

Look for our reviews over the weekend and early next week. Happy holidays.