Nestruck on Theatre: Why Canadians still love live theatre

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A month ago, I asked the readers of this newsletter: Are you seeing more or less theatre right now – and why?

I received more than 50 responses, and I wanted to share some of what I learned from these wonderfully detailed e-mails from theatregoers that might be useful to theatre makers.

First of all, I was surprised and pleased to learn how many readers said they actually were seeing more theatre compared with before the pandemic.

While there’s a prevailing belief that some fans of the performing arts were seduced by streaming at the peak of COVID and have stayed on the couch since, many readers emerged from isolation and bubbling with an expanded belief that the communal experience of theatre was special and irreplaceable.

Indeed, of those who responded that they are seeing less theatre, very few were doing so because of decreased desire or the quality or content of what’s on stage. (I did hear from some dissatisfied with individual theatre companies, but they almost all seemed to have found a different one more to their liking.)

Instead, these three impediments popped up the most.

Cost: As one reader who stopped going to the Stratford Festival this season wrote me: “The cost was the major – really the only – factor. "

Ticket prices are one aspect of that, with tacked-on fees being a particularly big turnoff. But mostly, it’s the costs outside any theatre company’s control.

For destination theatres, that’s higher prices for hotels and travel. But even people who are going out for an evening locally might find a price hike at a favourite pre-show restaurant makes them cut down on what was once a regular habit.

Inflation has made everything necessary in life more expensive, leaving less discretionary income for the arts. Our faltering social services don’t help, either. A lifelong theatregoer and donor with an adult disabled child wrote to me about the broken government promises and frozen funding that have led to her to reduce her theatregoing to a minimum.

Hassle: I heard from Ontarians – and visitors to the province – about this the most. Traffic. Construction. Unreliable public transit.

Toronto theatre is suffering the most from the chaos.

”Travel into the city has become both a massive headache and an expensive endeavour,” wrote one theatre lover who lives in Burlington, Ont.

“Twice I have had tickets for a show and started out on the subway, only to have it shut down far before my destination,” wrote another who lives in the city.

“Getting around this city is akin to going to the dentist,” says one downtowner, who admitted he’s staying home with Netflix instead for that reason.

Communications: A number of readers said they simply weren’t hearing about certain shows that they would have liked to see until they were over, and that some theatre companies had totally fallen off their radar.

Part of this is due to collapsing Canadian media. Part of it is the crisis in online communications (the inability to share reviews on Facebook; algorithms serving up extremism over enthusiasm on X; e-mail inboxes so full of spam you miss the newsletters you signed up for).

Particularly maddening: Google Ads for ticket resellers that appear at the top of search results and make people believe going to the theatre is more expensive than it actually is. (I helped one reader find affordable tickets to see Come From Away in Penticton, B.C, after she wrote bemoaning not being able to pay for $394 seats on StubHub.)

But it’s also clear from the e-mails I received that many theatres companies aren’t doing the best job getting the word about their shows out, either, by: pushing seasons announcements later and later; communicating their values more clearly than what their plays are about; and skrimping on websites that are extremely hard to navigate.

I have personally noticed that a number of theatre companies cut in-house media and communications staff to save in tight times – and that the theatres that didn’t cut back in that area are doing better. (Whether that’s cause or correlation, I can’t say for sure.)

To highlight one lovely response I got and conclude on an encouraging note: A 47-year-old suburban health care worker from Brampton, Ont., wrote to tell me of her newly discovered passion for the performing arts. Her daughter got involved in drama after being inspired by a middle-school teacher, and the enthusiasm spread from child to parent. Now, she drives around the GTA and sees three shows a month, traffic be damned.

This was a reminder to me of where it all begins for Canadian families that aren’t already in the theatre habit – the education system – and the ripple effects one great teacher can have on the whole ecology.

Thank you to everyone who has read the Nestruck on Theatre newsletter. It’s been a pleasure being in your inbox. You can continue to find my commentary and criticism online at The Globe and Mail – and I’m also on X, Threads and Bluesky.