It's a discussion that started with some interesting discussion of the Walmartization of American theatre thanks to the dominance of the Broadway system. Basically, if you are an actor anywhere in america and you want to make it, you have to leave the place you grew up in and go to New York and try to be in small shows so that producers will notice you and put you in Broadway shows, after which point you can get acting gigs all over the country because regional theatre companies across the states tend to bring most of their actors in from New York, because there aren't many well developed local actors because anyone local who wants to make it has to leave to go to... well you get it.
I've been thinking about the Calgary theatre scene. From the actor's point of view things are a lot better than that. If I go to a proffessional theatre company show in Calgary now, odds are I'll recognize at least half the cast. Okay, that's partly a function of me going to a lot of theatre, but it does tell you that those people are Calgarians who act professionally rather than imports from Toronto or New York. The same cannot be said on the playwriting side (which I guess is part of why this post is turning into a rant). I think you'll find that both the biggest and the hottest professional theatre companies in calgary are the ones doing big Canadian names (mostly from T.O.) or shows that were big a couple years ago on Broadway. Next year we'll see Drowsy Chaperone roll through at ATP or Ground Zero or whathaveyou and it will be touted as a hot Canadian success (successful because it went to Brodway? maybe) Meanwhile the state of affairs for the emerging playwright is largely one of starting out with a blend of readings (sponsored in part by companies who want to maintain their development cred without, you know, producing new work) and smaller, you-probably-haven't-heard-of-them semi-pros. I'm not going to say that isn't an important training ground for new playwrights - its a critical part of the learning process. But if a calgary playwright makes it through that process, it is currently only in order to get smaller and gradually larger theatres in Vancouver or Toronto to produce your work so that someday you'll be a name in those other places so that your home town might produce you. It doesn't seem like my mentors are getting produced in Calgary either. I know that they are writing too, but they've practically vanished off the main stages here because they haven't gone off to the hotter places to write "hits". So what hope do I have of getting onto a home town mainstage? Would it be too communist of me to suggest that any theatre company getting money from the province should be required to use a minimum percentage of albertans in their season - in each component considered separately - so a minimum percent of techies, actors, directors, playwrights, etc. Not that it needs to be all by any stretch.
Last week I had the idea that I should apply for a grant from somewhere and study in a number of Canadian cities what percentage of the productions were local, provincial, or Canadian by script, actor, all staff, and where their money came from (private, grant, ticket sales) per show weighted by attendance (or something) but then I realized that while I could probably get such a random grant, I would then actually have to do the work - which would be work - and I'd almost rather not know the answer.
There is one light of optimism in the Calgary theatre scene - seems like we've got a suprisingly healthy little political theatre scene blossoming. That's almost necessarily local, but it's not really my scene so it's not much help to me as a writer.
Maybe I should stop reading so many vancouver, toronto, london and new york theatre blogs. It's like - if things are so bad there, are we about to get steamrolled by the fallout? If I could, through another decade of work, emerge in a place where a Calgary mainstage would even consider producing my work - will there be any theatres left to do so?
Me (and my bald spot) used to actually make theatre:
Now we watch it.
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