The Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»Playhouse Theatre Company met its end last week leaving a river of red ink and an arts community shocked and dismayed. On the cusp of celebrating its 50th year as the mother ship of B.C. theatre production, the board of governors decided, in the middle of the night and in the middle of the season, to pull the plug. The final performance, Hunchback, was on Saturday.
Heather Redfern, the executive director of the Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»East Cultural Centre (The Cultch), the co-producer of Hunchback, was stunned. She was given no warning the curtain was coming down for good. The performing company, Catalyst Theatre, she said, had no idea either.
Now money is owing to The Cultch and Catalyst. There is also money presumably owing to the Manitoba Theatre Company, which was readying the next co-production for the Playhouse.
Then there is the small matter of a lease agreement the Playhouse Theatre Company has for space beyond the actual Playhouse building itself, which requires one years notice on an annual rent of $185,000.
This item can be found in the companys most recent audited financial statements along with the fact that for at least the past two years (2009 and 2010) the organization has been seriously under water. They have lost more than $1 million in that 24-month stretch.
In June of 2011, the Playhouse Theatre Company took its case to city hall (and not for the first time) and managed what many in the arts community consider a backroom deal, a bailout of $1 million. This included forgiving a debt to the city of $426,000 and another $400,000 to pay off other creditors, all of which was added to an earlier in camera deal in April for $100,000 to pay some bills.
What annoys some about this deal is that the Playhouse didnt also launch a public campaign to seek matching funding from corporate sponsors and instead put all its eggs in the city basket. In the end, as became obvious last week, that wasnt enough.
In fact, at the time of the city bailout the Playhouse Company was in the midst of a subscription drive. When news of the bailout was leaked, the subscription drive took a serious dive, presumably because theatre goers didnt want to invest in a sinking ship. Season ticket holders, once a relatively robust 8,000 have dropped to 4,500.
It didnt help that in an attempt to trim costs the Playhouse Theatre Company ended up putting on less expensive and apparently less attractive performances.
But not all of this should fall on the shoulders of the Playhouse Theatre Company. The city should bear a significant portion of the fault because of what is referred to as the civic theatre model. This affects resident companies not just at the Playhouse Theatre, but also the Queen Elizabeth Theatre and the Orpheum, and has long been a sore point.
In a memo Playhouse artistic director Max Reimer wrote following the funding infusion from the city, he referred to the uniquely awkward business terms under which we have operated since I was attending elementary school in North Vancouver.
Essentially the model limits the resident companies from extending the runs of successful productions unlike, say, the Arts Club Theatre Company, which own its own space. Thats because the city has booked the space for some other event. The model also requires resident companies to go through the expensive process of taking down sets in the middle of a run when the space has been booked for afternoon concerts by other organizations.
In a confidential memo from city manager Penny Ballem written after the decision to shut down the Playhouse Company we learn the city is now reviewing this model.
But given the fact that the Playhouse Company has been working with the city for the past three years to try to resolve its problems, you have to wonder why the city would let the organization collapse before making this move.
