The beautiful facade of the recently refurbished Gladstone Theatre photo: Ben Welland

Poor attendance is a serious threat to Ottawa's smaller professional theatre companies. Although not universal to all productions, many shows in 2008 have struggled to attract an audience. There were an alarming number of empty seats at Rabbit Hole, The Gladstone's second in-house production this fall.

Kelly struggles to explain why. "Theatre is getting pricey," he muses. "Are we pricing ourselves out of existence?" It's a thorny issue. Cut ticket prices, and wages fall for already poorly paid actors. It's not something Kelly is prepared to do. Neither is The Gladstone's owner Steve Martin. "To maintain the high quality of productions, we have to pay our actors well. If I cut ticket prices, I have to cut everything else. It's a downward spiral," Martin says.

But the facts are compelling. Covers for local bands rarely top $10. In contrast, full price for Catalpa is $35, Third Wall Theatre Company charges $27, and it's $24 to see amateur productions at Ottawa Little Theatre. People can see three or four local bands for the price of one local theatre show. It's not something young, culturally active people think about doing on the spur of the moment.

Another issue is profile. "When I bought The Gladstone, I was shocked there were so many professional companies in town I had no knowledge of," explains Steve Martin. Ottawa has a wealth of talent, but companies such as Gruppo Rubato, Mutatis Mutandis and Vision Theatre have little profile outside the theatre community. Kelly points to complacency regarding promotion. "When I was working in Ireland, I'd set 30 per cent of my budget for marketing. When I did my first Ottawa show, I had people say, 'We don't pay for publicity here, we get it all free,'" he explains. "I still don't set anything like 30 per cent aside for publicity." Martin concurs: "Marketing is probably the last thing that is thought about. I think that is the biggest failing."

Whatever the cause, poor audiences for Ottawa theatre could soon cause casualties. Kelly is again considering his future. "With less than 50 people a night, there isn't much money to put the material on," he explains, exasperated. "So you stop doing it. That may be the only way out."
 
 

		Write your comment on this article!

A few questions     Dear Arts Editors, Have we done something wrong? We've been sending you press releases full of witticisms and high definition photos, and then following up with bubbly phone calls letting you know why our productions are important and why your readers would enjoy them. We work hard to formulate selling points for every production within the season. Sometimes we even risk artistic integrity by marketing our productions in a way that would appeal to a wide variety of people because we know how important that is. We try really, really hard - and yet we feel you are completely ignoring us. You keep cutting back on local arts coverage in favour of productions from out-of-town, or celebrity gossip, or Hollywood movies. Some of you even decided that personal interest stories are pretty much the same as arts stories and therefore meshed them together. Why would you do that? Doesn't local theatre deserve to be recognized? Haven't we accomplished enough for you to take some notice? Is there anything else we can do to appeal to your interests? We're getting a little desperate these days because the City of Ottawa wants to cut our arts funding (not only from theatre, but from festivals and museums). I love this city and I know - because I've done my research - that we have a vibrant arts scene. But our mayor doesn't know this. Why? Perhaps because you're not telling him so. If you keep refusing to hear our ideas, to celebrate our achievements, to share our stories with the rest of our community, then you are saying that our local arts scene has no importance. And you're the media: so if you say so, then it must be true. You have the power to change minds, to alter perspectives. Please reveal the truth about our arts scene. Please show people that there is much to be proud of. Please fight for discussion, enlightenment, imagination, and innovation. We are willing to fight, but we need your help. Yours respectfully, Jessica Ruano Performing Arts
Jessica Ruano		November 13th, 2008
Are you kidding?     Dear Jessica, After reading your letter about a half dozen times, I am still completely confused, if not slightly annoyed. The title of your comment "a few questions" would seem to be a logical beginning point but this is not the case. Your questions: Have we done something wrong?; Why would we mesh 'personal interest' and arts stories?; Doesn't local theatre deserve to be recognized?; Haven't we accomplished enough for you to take some notice?; these, and the remainder of your diatribe against us, make absolutely no sense. Anyone reading the article above would see it as an attempt, on the paper's and writer's part, to draw further attention to the situation facing Ottawa's theatre community. A regular reader of this paper would recognize it as a step outside the usual collection of previews and reviews that we publish. Perhaps you think that by giving voice to the concerns of a local director/ producer and theatre owner, we are somehow meshing 'personal interest' with 'arts' stories? And, further, how would such an alleged enmeshing break any covenant of 'proper' arts coverage? There is personal interest in every piece of journalism. Would you rather if we wrote about artistic theory? Obviously, the explicit point to the article above (for which the sub-title is "Ottawa's theatre productions set a high standard"), is that we fully support the local performing arts and are posing necessary questions about local why local theatre is not well attended. The lack of attendence is certainly not this paper's fault; a quick glance to the left of this page shows 8 theatre stories for the last eight editions - this on top of coverage for other forms of the arts, which we would desperately like to flesh out further. In fact, a quick assessment shows that theatre articles have made up 40% of our arts section over the last 2 months. I'm completely flummoxed Jessica: what exactly is your point again? Regards, Cormac Rea Editor
XP Editor		November 13th, 2008

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