LAST WEEKEND, Toronto Globe & Mail Theatre critic Kelly Nestruck wrote a very interesting article comparing Toronto & Chicago theatre. It found Toronto seriously wanting for a number of factors that anyone with even glancing familiarity with the theatre scene here couldn't really deny. They basically boiled down to a lack of Comprehensive Criticism, Collegiality, Civic Leadership & Confidence.
Others have noticed this article & it's started a long-overdue discussion.
But what I haven't been able to get out of my head is how neatly the article parallels the malaise that infects writers, producers, production companies & funders in the Domestic Television Industry, as well. Add in the pointless energies wasted on regional infighting, and you've got the whole wax ball.
I was going to write about that, but ... why? I've written about it before. If you read Nestruck's article, and you work in film/tv in the city, you can probably tick off the parallels yourself. So I'd say go read it. And think on it.
And then -- what needs to happen next? Because the Canadian default of whining endlessly and bitterly without ever doing anything about it isn't going to ameliorate the situation.
6 comments:
Thanks for linking to that, it's good.
One thing; the article mentions the co-ordinating the Chicago theatres do among themselves and then mentions Toronto theatres scheduling big opening nights the same night.
Recently on here someone mentioned CTV puttng its new comedies up against the CBC comedies.
Not that you aren't busy enough, but you mentioned there might be a post here about that?
Okay, Denis, I thought about it and I think I have something to talk about.
Now, it depends what we want. Do we want Canadian viewers to have Canadian stories to watch or do we want to make sure a couple thousand Canadians have jobs in the TV business?
I've been a left-wing nationalist my whole life but I've finally come to the conclusion that if we want to give Canadians their own stories on TV we need to let the Americans in. Let there be CBS Canada, NBC Canada, ABC Canada - whichever networks want in.
Let them put their own shows on their own networks and make them the same deal we make the Canadian networks - for access to the 30 million customers here you just have to make a couple of Canadian shows.
And then make it part of the deal that the SHOWS have to be Canadian.
Because the viewers don't care what passport the writer travels on, they don't care if the director has landed immigrant status or not. They just care that show is set in Toronto or Halifax or Saskatchewan and makes jokes about the Grey Cup and has the Tragically Hip practicing in the garage.
And the viewers really don't care which network shareholders make the profits.
I think there's going to be a lot of us arguing around very similar points over the next few years, John. Best to think about what your position is now. So thanks for sharing that.
I think it's probably going to become one of the biggest cultural discussions of the next three years.
As for the scheduling thing, yes -- originally I was going to write on this but then other stuff has superseded it. There's a couple posts I want to write more. So briefly -- I think it's different because there's no such thing as a theatre PVR. The need for collegiality is less.
I also think that we can no more ask nets to think about another net's Cancon than we can demand viewers watch shows because they're Canadian. Why should they? It's a losing argument and kind of unreasonable. Better competing head to head than exiled to Sat night. At least on Mondays people watch TV.
And really, if we want to pretend that we're going to be a healthy industry deserving of not being on life support, isn't a first step offering people multiple choices of homegrown stuff to snack on at the same time? Shows going head to head should be a sign of health, not sickness.
Oop. Hit post too soon. Now I forget where I was going. Oh well. I was probably going to say more but now I won't just because it will drive Joe Clark batshit fucking insane and have him diving for more Ayn Rand anecdotes, and that shizz is better than cocoa butter on a blazing Miami Beach day, dig?
I've had the good fortune to work in theatres in both Chicago and Toronto and all of what's said in the Globe is accurate.
On the collegial level, it's astonishing to experience the co-operation among both Chicago theatre companies and their artists.
It's something I've encountered throughout the US, where it's considered not only important to know what's going on in New York, but to be current with the scene in regions such as Chicago as well as theatres like the Seattle Rep, The Guthrie in Minneapolis and Des McAnuff's stage in La Jolla, among others.
It's a process of realizing "we're all after the same thing" and it doesn't matter who gets there first.
I think the reason a lot of that doesn't exist here is that you've just got too many talented people scrabbling for the few crumbs available to mount their own shows.
Most investors want shows with a record of turning a quick profit elsewhere or come with an established cache. Meanwhile government funders slice their pies so thin nobody can say they didn't get something but that something isn't enough to make a difference.
There's a certain amount of sharing stages and rehearsal spaces, but everybody is so strapped they soon have to think of their own survival.
One of the major problems they all face, however, is the lack of what's known as a "Transfer House", a theatre available to anybody who happens to suddenly have a hit on their hands.
The economics of local theatre require a strictly adhered to subscription season. So when a show becomes successful, the run can only be extended by a week or two at most before it has to close to make room for the next show in the season.
Sometimes the hit is revived later, but often it has lost the momentum and audience awareness of the original production and never realizes its full profit potential.
And without sustained hits, no theatre can build its own warchest to either expand its production output or acquire better performance spaces.
Once or twice, Transfer theatres have arisen in Toronto, but they quickly succumb to gentrification, are levelled for Condo construction or get turned into more lucrative nightclubs.
Again, investors want a quick return and government funders aren't sure if they should be supporting popular fare rather than serving some other mandated social agenda.
On one theatre board on which I served, there was an architect's model of the company's dream theatre in the boardroom. Every two or three years one Arts Council or another would fund feasibility studies on building it or figuring out how to build it. But while the consultants made money, the theatre remains only a dream.
And while building a specific theatre district would undoubtedly help develop the local scene, Toronto (and its provincial and Fedral enablers) has instead heavily invested in fragmentation, establishing major performance
spaces on King St, Upper and Lower Yonge, North York, Harborfront and the Distillery District based more on sustaining real estate values than building a focused culture.
Conflicting opening nights is an issue whenever you have a number of companies competing for virtually the same audience. But we also have newspapers like the Globe who are loathe to cover theatres who don't or can't purchase advertising in their pages nor those mounting non-Equity or more experimental shows.
They also don't provide daily theatre coverage so only a handful of reviews fill the space available.
Chicago got where it has through co-operation at all levels and some of the players understanding that their own agenda may have to wait until other elements have become established.
Perhaps the difference is that Chicago takes real civic pride in its theater.
Chicago has never gotten the respect it deserves in American culture. (It's always dismissed as the "Flyover Land" city for people too timid or untalented to move to the coasts.) But when Broadway started abandoning contemporary dramas for special-effects musicals, revivals, and shows based on popular movies, Chicago saw an opening to become America's pre-eminent city for serious theater.
(Yes, New York still has great theater, but it's very hard for new plays to get anything more than a workshop or staged reading. Even NYC non-profits schedule with an eye to commercial success, because funding is so scarce. It's no surprise that so many Tony-winning dramas were developed elsewhere before moving to Broadway.)
I think Chicagoans truly believe that they're at the forefront of serious American theater. They're not trying to be Number 3, and that creates a lot more excitement.
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