StratfordMatters, yes – but this is the time to imagine how Canada’s largest theatre company could matter even more GlobeArts
In an alternative universe, the Stratford Festival is just about to wrap up the opening week of its 2020 season with a Saturday night performance ofstarring Colm Feore. The show would officially open its brand-new, paid-off $70-million Tom Patterson Theatre on the banks of the Avon River.
Add in the students who come with varying levels of enthusiasm as part of school groups – around 50,000 each year – and you reach a cumulative audience of about 500,000, and the accompanying box-office revenue needed to keep the $65-million ship afloat with just 6 per cent of the budget coming from government grants.
In her opening remarks, Stephenson, who was accompanied by the Stratford Festival’s executive director, Anita Gaffney, asked MPs to “think of the Stratford Festival as a business – because it’s the way we see ourselves.” There’s no shame in anyone asking for help during an unprecedented crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic – and certainly less high-minded entertainment giants have been shameless in asking for it.
It’s definitely time that Stratford Festival moved on from its foundational myth, of Shakespeare keeping a town afloat single-handedly. This has, ultimately, been harmful to Canadian theatre in the long term.The attractiveness of the well-known, if-you-build-it-they-will-come story is in no small way responsible for why Canadians continue to not financially support the performing arts in the way that the British, let alone the Europeans do.
But the importance of Canada having at least one large not-for-profit arts institution with major resources, such as Stratford, has been really brought home during the pandemic. While myriad international theatres have flooded the internet with impressive streaming productions, Stratford is the only Canadian theatre to have a vault of high-quality filmed content to offer the housebound and keep our stage artists in the public eye.
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