We all know every Canadian theatre company could use more money. Well, Calgary-based Quest Theatre has a chance to win some! All you have to do is vote on Facebook at some point within the next three days, and Quest could win $250 000!!
Visit Quest’s website for more details: http://www.questtheatre.org/
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I always thought Frozen Yogurt would be a really great name for a winter arts festival in Calgary. The sub-heading would read Calgary, Cultured to Perfection or something.
Oh! Or Now in Hundreds of Different Flavours!
Or something about toppings. Ummm…
…The poster could be a frozen yogurt Calgary tower. Oh! Or a cow eating a frozen yogurt, questioning whether or not that is considered part of a vegan diet.
Speaking of things that are cultured, the Calgary Arts Development Authority has a nifty blog. Last month, they announced some interesting stats and figures regarding arts and arts funding in Calgary and have been kind enough to post them online for those who couldn’t attend. Some of these stats are really encouraging, though the number of full-time, employed artists in this city is a touch frightening. Anyway. We’ll discuss that later.
If you are interested, they’ve posted some stats in a few different formats. If you have time, go through them all. Very worth it.
1. Here’s the condensed version.
Lead with Culture: 2009 Report to the Community from Calgary Arts Development on Vimeo.
2. Here is their report online or in PDF.
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3. And here’s the extended version (don’t worry, it’s not actually 47 minutes long).
So check that stuff out.
Okay, CADA, I promoted your website. Now YOU have to make Frozen Yogurt a reality. Deal?
FROM CBC News – Calgary – City approves $2M for Pumphouse Theatre.
Last Updated: Monday, April 26, 2010 | 4:36 PM MT
An intense lobbying effort by Calgary’s Pumphouse Theatre and its supporters paid off Monday as a city committee approved $2 million for the theatre’s expansion.
Earlier this month, a tie vote by the same committee resulted in the rejection of the funding request. At the time, aldermen were unsure about the business plan and business model.
Since then, the theatre’s staff met with key aldermen to go over the proposal and supporters sent letters urging the city committee to back the community theatre centre, and in turn, arts in Calgary.
In front of several theatre supporters on Monday, four aldermen — Diane Colley-Urquhart, Andre Chabot, Ric McIver and Jim Stevenson — who had earlier rejected the bid changed their support, allowing the committee to approve the money by a vote of 14 to one.
“Had I not had the business plan and all the information, I wouldn’t have supported them at all,” Colley-Urquhart, explaining her change of heart.
“Fourteen to one far exceeds our expectations,” said Scott McTavish, the Pumphouse’s executive director. “We’re quite happy with council’s decision today and it sends a strong message to the federal government that this is supported by Calgary and the citizens of Calgary.”
The almost 100-year-old theatre needs to fix leaky roofs and a furnace held together with duct tape, as well as expand its current area, arguing that Calgary lacks small to mid-sized theatre spaces for performance and rehearsals.
The Pumphouse project is slated to cost a total of $10.5 million. The city gave the project $2 million in 2006, but the theatre was forced to ask for more after the provincial government pulled out of a $5-million commitment.
McTavish said with Monday’s municipal money, the theatre can now apply for a federal grant for $3 million. The Pumphouse still has to raise the final $3.5 million; so far it’s reached $325,000.
This was posted today on Facebook by the Pumphouse Theatre.
Click HERE for the link to the page.
As you may or may not know our upcoming expansion project Pumphouse 2012 received a rough ride from Community and Protective Services this past Wednesday April 8, 2010. We are working with our partners at Calgary Arts Development and City of Calgary Administration in an effort to save Pumphouse 2012 from cancellation when it comes up for reconsideration at the April 26, 2010 council meeting.
We urgently need your support and the support of your volunteers and patrons in a two-stage lobby effort. Stage 1 will involve a letter, phone, fax and e-mail campaign to select members of council including the aldermen who we want to reconsider their position on the issue: Alderman Joe Connelly, Alderman Rick McIver, Alderman Diane Colley-Urquhart, Alderman Andre Chabot, and Alderman Jim Stevenson. We also need to sway the Aldermen who have an unknown position including: Alderman Dale Hodges, Alderman Gord Lowe, Alderman Ray Jones, and Alderman Linda Fox-Mellway.
The Pumphouse is working on a draft letter of support, which we will make available to you ASAP along with contact information for you to forward to your constituents.
Stage 2 will involve a public presence at the council meeting. Our goal is to fill the council chambers with 200-300 people on April 26, 2010 at 9:30 am.
For those of you with productions remaining in the month of April we request that you include a pre-show chat preceding each of your presentations to solicit your patrons for support for the continued health and vibrancy of not only The Pumphouse, but also the diverse theatrical community in general who benefit from the existence of The Pumphouse Theatre.
Some points to include in your message are the following:
1. The city of Calgary owns the building. If there is weak support from the owner the federal government and other donors are less likely to give.
2. The building is aging; some parts are 38 years old and some 100 years old. This project is not only about an expansion to help foster the theatre community, but also about maintaining the existing building to ensure that the Pumphouse will remain an affordable venue for both community theatre and emerging professional companies.
3. If the project fails to go ahead there is a risk that the Pumphouse will cease to remain affordable due to increases in fees to cover maintenance costs. We will cease to be accessible in the event of any infrastructure failure because The Pumphouse will be forced to close its doors until such time as the city chooses to effect repairs.
4. If the city decides to support the project, all of The Pumphouse children’s theatre programs would be in house and there would be no need to rent additional facilities. We would also be able to expand programs and capacity so more children would benefit from our affordable programming.
5. If the city supports the project the expansion translates into jobs. The Pumphouse will hire more staff to assist the growing client base and children’s programming
If you’re liking our new blog, and want more Calgary-theatre-blogging, check out these two temporary blogs over the next few weeks…
Mark, bicycle-swallowing-co-AD and OYR office mate, Hopkins is running a very fun and entertaining festival blog for the High Performance Rodeo here http://www.hprodeo.ca/blog
And at Theatre Calgary, production dramaturg Shari Wattling has a behind the scenes blog chronicling the creation of one the largest new shows happening in Canadian theatre this year, Beyond Eden, here http://theatrecalgary.com/edenblog/
There are some great insights to be had in these blogs, happy reading
by Jamie Dunsdon
Big congrats to our good friends at Downstage, who are taking over the 10-Minute Play Festival in 2011! Read all about it in the Calgary Herald.
Previously hosted by Ground Zero Theatre, the event just took place at the Martha Cohen on Saturday January 9th as part of the High Performance Rodeo. I’ll admit that this year’s festival was my first…and I had a lot of fun! Congrats to Verb’s Col Cseke, who was on the Downstage team on Saturday, and performed in a particularly insightful examination of death and the consequences of our actions. And by insightful, I do mean hilarious. Col got killed by by something resembling a tomahawk. Also, Downstage’s Artistic Director Simon Mallet appeared onstage with a sock on his head. Awesome.
Also, big kudos to the ladies that are the Ellipsis Tree Collective. They won the Douggie Award for their 10-minute play, which was also their first performance as a collective. It rocked and so do they, so check out their website.
After posting Lindsay Schwietz’s article on the 2008/09 results of the Equity in Canadian Theatre study, I couldn’t help but wonder how Alberta and Calgary stood up against the national averages. With the (albeit recent) appointment of Vanessa Porteous to the helm of ATP, Pamela Halstead at Lunchbox, and Nikki Loach at Quest, I’d like to believe Calgary could be a leader in (dare I say it) progressive hiring practices…unbelievable that hiring deserving women to positions of power could still be the definition of “progressive hiring.”
I emailed Nightwood Theatre in Toronto (the pioneering feminist theatre company that partnered with PACT and the PGC for the 2006 Equitiy in Canadian Theatre Study) and they kindly emailed me the results of the 2008-09 straw poll. For the record, I love Nightwood. The current team of Artistic Director Kelly Thornton and Producer Monica Esteves have been doing some amazing work over the past few years. In addition to their active efforts to support female artists, they’ve been producing some rock awesome art. I had the good fortune to see Sonja Mills’ The Danish Play last time I was in TO, and can’t wait to return to see what they’re up to.
Okay, so on to the figures.
The following are the results of the straw poll from the 2008/09 Season. Out of 139 PACT member theatres, 141 completed the poll. Here are the national findings, also posted in Lindsay’s post on Praxis:
And where does Alberta rest in these figures? Well we’ve been lumped in with the territories, but I only know of one PACT company up there, Nakai Theatre in the Yukon. I think it is probably safe to say this poll is largely of Albertan companies. First, let’s look at Artistic Directors of PACT Companies. Note that the y axis on all of the following charts represent % of artists, not the actual numbers.
Now playwrights:
And the directors:
But which kinds of companies are led by whom? Here’s a breakdown divided by male and female Artistic Directors, playwrights, and directors:
What does this all mean for Calgary?
Here’s a quote from the 2006 study, which seems to still be relevant today.
Men are particularly hired as ADs, directors and playwrights in greater numbers than women at the larger, more established theatres, whereas women are found in greater numbers at smaller companies with modest to mid-size budgets.
…Companies with female ADS have a higher incidence of TYA activities, production tours, and use of non-traditional venues than companies with male ADS.
~Rebecca Burton. Adding it Up: The Status of Women in Canadian Theatre
If we assume this to be true today, then what might Calgary’s bar graph look like once we include the non-PACT companies in Calgary into the study, those that would not have reported for the 2008-09 study? Could the small companies led by women help balance the scales?
Let’s consider the following companies: Theatre Calgary, Ghost River, Sage, Ground Zero, Downstage, Vertigo, OYR, CYPT, Theatre Junction, Shakespeare in the Park, the Old Trouts, Forte Musical Theatre Guild, and Theatre Encounter are all led by male ADs. Meanwhile ATP, Lunchbox, Urban Curvz, Quest, Evergreen, The Shakespeare Company, W.P. Puppet, Centre Stage, and our very own Verb theatre have female ADs. Green Fools has one male and one female AD. Those lists are by no means exhaustive (just off the top of my head – I am sure there are more that I’m forgetting), and some are semi-professional, but they do give an idea of the size of companies led by male and female ADs in this city. With 10 female ADs and 19 male ADs on that hastily compiled list, the bar graph looks a little like this:
As for directors and playwrights, in addition to the fact that it would take weeks to even begin a study of that magnitude for the 2009/10 season, I believe you would need data from at least two or three seasons to get a fair sampling.
The question I always ask when looking at these numbers is simple: on average, do male ADs program seasons of plays written by men? Do they hire more male directors to direct those plays? And if so, why? How about females? I’ve often heard this question answered in the following way: ”Bill is the AD of Company X. Since Bill is attracted to stories and plays that engage him, and the stories that engage him are partly determined by gender voice, Bill is more likely to connect with a play written by Tim than by Judy. And who should Bill hire to direct Tim’s play? Who better than Fred?” This theory suggests that gender inequity may start with the AD. The difficulty is that it doesn’t seem to work quite the same with with female ADs. Though female ADs on average produce more female playwrights than male ADs do, they still produce more male playwrights than female playwrights overall. Female ADs DO seem to hire more female directors than male directors, though…. This is from the national findings of the 2006 study:
While companies with female ADs produce female playwrights 38% of the time on average, companies with male ADs do so only 24% of the time. Conversely, companies with male ADs produce work by men 76% of the time on average, while companies with female ADs stage work by men 62% of the time.
Women directed 34% of the staged productions overall, men directed the other 66%, and people of colour directed not quite 6% of the plays (less than 3% for each gender). Companies run by men hired female directors 24% of the time,whereas companies run by women hired female directors 55% of the time.
~Rebecca Burton. Adding it Up: The Status of Women in Canadian Theatre
What does this all mean? …I don’t know …Affirmative action? Any university drama professor will tell you their classes are usually 80% female, so there certainly shouldn’t be a lack of available artists, right? For now, I suppose it means we have to keep an eye on it. I’ve heard recently that the Canada Council for the Arts will, for the first time since the 1990s, require companies to report gender statistics. As a major granting organization, they have the ability to reward companies for making efforts to bring a little more balance to those bar graphs. Maybe it’s not the best way to bring about change, but if it helps…
Thanks again to the Nightwood folks for providing the data.
Are we a quiet theatre community? I’m speaking mostly of the artists here, since suggesting that Canadian audiences are quiet would be a mistake that only Billy Bob Thornton can really appreciate. But what about the theatre artists, specifically those here in Calgary? Are we…shy? Are we apathetic? Apolitical? Those of you who have spent any time in the east recently, especially Toronto, know that the politics of the industry seem to be a little more public out there, the artists a little more charged when it comes to discussing the issues. Even BC is all abuzz these days, though I’m sure we’d prefer to hear their voices under better circumstances.
But Calgary has an energetic, active, diverse body of artists! I got to see this last year when the Prime Minister made some ignorant comments about the value of arts in Canada. Even Calgary, quiet Calgary stood up as Calgarian artists took part in the RIP protest and Wrecking Ball events! So why isn’t there more daily, public discourse about the issues that face our local theatre community? Where are our letters to the editor, our passionate blogs now?
Have we grown complacent? Probably a little. And yet, there does seem to be an interest in a real discussion about the issues that face Calgary theatre artists. Take the All Stages Magazine published by Theatre Alberta. For those who don’t subscribe, Editor David van Belle has completely madeover the old Theatre Alberta newsletter, and transformed the quarterly publication from a handful of articles that I felt obligated to read to a wealth of articles that I look forward to reading. It still provides many of the same services as the old newsletter, but now dares to talk about things that theatre artists care about! It has a voice! The winter 2009 issue, for example, was titled “Money: The Thing We Always Talk About. The Thing We Never Talk About.” If you don’t subscribe to ASM, you should really take a look.
All Stages Magazine
But of course we now live in the age of status updates, which means that we not only have the ability to have e-discussions in real time, but also that there is an expectation that this should be available. Maybe it’s not that we are a quiet community, then, but instead that we lack a single forum for the kind of discussion we’re already eager for. Enter Verb Theatre’s blog, The Digital Inkblot.
My hope is that you will find this blog not only a resource for discussing the questions that face us all, but also an outlet for your open letters to the theatre community. My hope is that you will have fun with this blog and take this opportunity to have your voice heard. Visit the Inkblot and see what you can see! And then…Take Action!
