Looking ahead to next century of Victoria theatre
Times Colonist
May 27, 2014
A clue to the future of Victoria’s civic theatres might lie in a comedy show that recently played the McPherson Playhouse.
If you’re over 35, you likely haven’t heard of #NoFilter. This was, in several significant ways, a different kind of performance.
It starred three young American comedians: Mamrie Hart, Grace Helbig and Hannah Hart. These social media stars didn’t build their audience with TV appearances or live shows. Instead, the #NoFilter gang became famous via YouTube, garnering 2.8 million subscribers and total views of almost 200 million.
At the McPherson Playhouse, the trio attracted a good audience — 600-plus at the 772-seat theatre. Rather than relying on print, radio or TV advertising, #NoFilter mostly got the word out online. During the show, the young audience (many of them teenaged girls) used their phones throughout: texting, tweeting, taking photos and videos.
Perhaps more than any show that has ever come to the McPherson, #NoFilter (the name refers to a Twitter address) was a true product of the Internet age.
The McPherson Playhouse and the 1,416-seat Royal Theatre were built a century ago. In 1914, Charlie Chaplin made his film debut in a short called Making a Living. The First World War began. The first steamboat made its passage through the Panama Canal.
Of course, back then, no one could imagine a global technological revolution would take place a century later. And who knows where entertainment will go in the next 10 years or even five years ... let alone 100?
Trying to anticipate the future of live performance is just one dilemma faced by our civic theatres. Those grand old dames, the Royal Theatre and the McPherson Playhouse, are challenged in a multitude of ways.
1. Passing the buck: Sometimes, it seems our civic theatres are starved for love. Last year, Victoria Coun. Geoff Young suggested the City of Victoria either literally hand the Mac over to the arts community or close the theatre.
Young’s tough-love stance reflects the fact it costs Victoria $750,000 a year to run it (a $350,000 operating grant and a $400,000 capital grant). For the city, the financial burden seems unfair, as folk from all over Greater Victoria attend shows there. For politicians like Young, the Mac’s a bit of a boondoggle.
The situation with the Royal Theatre is different — although one senses the municipalities stuck with funding it also view it as something as an albatross. The Royal is funded jointly by Saanich, Oak Bay and Victoria. Each year it receives a capital grant of $480,000 and an operating grant of $100,000. But other Greater Victoria municipalities — for example, Esquimalt or Colwood — contribute nothing, even though their citizens flock to the Royal to enjoy the likes of Herbie Hancock, Tegan and Sara or Steve Martin.
2. Every municipality wants its own fiefdom: Langford Mayor Stew Young recently made headlines when he announced he’d like to build a performing arts theatre in what’s touted as the fastest-growing municipality on southern Vancouver Island. Making the declaration, Young proudly noted Langford has built “$30 to $40 million” worth of facilities in the last five years, including City Centre Park, which has an ice rink, a stadium and a bowling alley.
There’s something of a sports team mentality (“Go Canucks!”) to the notion that each of Greater Victoria’s 13 municipalities must function as an independent mini-city, complete with performing arts theatre, recreation centre, police department, fire department and so on. Yet such tiny-town boosterism isn’t helping the Royal and the Mac. In an ideal world, our civic theatres would receive financial support from all of Greater Victoria, rather than a few core municipalities.
Such funding would almost certainly require amalgamation, which won’t happen any time soon, if ever. Typically, when the lobby group Amalgamation Yes tried to convince municipalities to include a question about amalgamation on 2014 ballots, a handful (including Saanich, with the largest population) immediately dismissed the idea.
3. Burgeoning competition: If new municipal theatres are built, the Royal and Mac must compete with them for audiences. And for our civic theatres, audiences have already eroded, thanks to the emergence of new venues such as the Alix Goolden Hall and the Metro Theatre. As well, there’s increased competition from the University of Victoria’s Farquhar Auditorium, lately more aggressive in booking name acts such as Martin Short, Cheap Trick and Nana Mouskouri.
3. Victoria’s civic theatres largely pay their own way: In financial terms, civic theatres appear to be considered less important than, say, the swimming pool or soccer fields.
In Victoria (as with most municipalities) staff wages for such recreational amenities are largely covered by taxes. Not so the Royal and Mac theatres.
Yes, they receive some funding — annual operating grants for both theatres total $450,000.
But our civic theatres are largely expected to support themselves with what is, essentially, a commercial business model. The yearly operating cost for the Royal and Mac is $3 million, much of that going to 180 full and part-time employees. Our non-profit civic theatres must generate sufficient cash via box-office revenues to pay their employees, whereas if no one went to the Crystal Pool, the staff would still get a paycheque.
4. That means high rental rates: For many Greater Victoria arts groups — typically on shoestring budgets — the rental rates at the Mac and the Royal are prohibitively high. For instance, renting theMac costs $990 a day for non-profit groups. Yet given the current financial setup, the theatres cannot afford to be rented for less.
For the typical company of amateur performers, the Mac and the Royal are too expensive. Gone are the days when school choirs or performing arts festivals would get their day to shine at the Royal or the Mac. It’s a shame, as this experience is traditionally an essential function of the civic theatre. If young people grow into adulthood without a historical connection to these theatres, they become detached and indifferent to their future.
5. Cultural shift: Symphony orchestras and opera companies across North America are in trouble because audience levels are declining. These days, most people attending classical music concerts are retirement age. A 2012 study by the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts suggests classical music attendance by those aged 35 to 54 was down, while those 65 and up attended at the highest levels.
The situation in Canada is similar. How will it affect the Royal if the Victoria Symphony and Pacific Opera Victoria, both major users, ride into the sunset?
6. The future: Over the years, Victoria’s arts community has lobbied for the building a new, state-of-the-art performing arts centre (a decade ago there was a proposal for putting a $45-million, 1,800-seat theatre at the Inner Harbour). Yet with traditional forms of performing arts in peril, and with a technological revolution only just beginning, who knows where entertainment will go in the next few decades?
What role will Twitter, Facebook or other social media play? (Some Broadway theatres have already established “twitter nights” for die-hard gadget-lovers.) Will the audience wear Google Glass? What role will virtual reality or some other computer-generated wonderment play?
As far as building new civic theatres goes, it might be wise to wait, lest we get stuck with outdated monuments to culture. As far as our existing civic theatres go, it would be wise to reassess how they are funded (the Royal and Mac haven’t had a grant increase in 15 years). And perhaps we should consider whether they are truly serving — and being made fully accessible to — our community.
This month, our city commemorates the centenary of the Royal Theatre and the McPherson Playhouse with a week of celebratory performances. But what happens after that? Perhaps the biggest question is: Are we Victorians — and let’s include Greater Victorians — making plans for their future?
© Copyright Times Colonist
Times Colonist
May 27, 2014
A clue to the future of Victoria’s civic theatres might lie in a comedy show that recently played the McPherson Playhouse.
If you’re over 35, you likely haven’t heard of #NoFilter. This was, in several significant ways, a different kind of performance.
It starred three young American comedians: Mamrie Hart, Grace Helbig and Hannah Hart. These social media stars didn’t build their audience with TV appearances or live shows. Instead, the #NoFilter gang became famous via YouTube, garnering 2.8 million subscribers and total views of almost 200 million.
At the McPherson Playhouse, the trio attracted a good audience — 600-plus at the 772-seat theatre. Rather than relying on print, radio or TV advertising, #NoFilter mostly got the word out online. During the show, the young audience (many of them teenaged girls) used their phones throughout: texting, tweeting, taking photos and videos.
Perhaps more than any show that has ever come to the McPherson, #NoFilter (the name refers to a Twitter address) was a true product of the Internet age.
The McPherson Playhouse and the 1,416-seat Royal Theatre were built a century ago. In 1914, Charlie Chaplin made his film debut in a short called Making a Living. The First World War began. The first steamboat made its passage through the Panama Canal.
Of course, back then, no one could imagine a global technological revolution would take place a century later. And who knows where entertainment will go in the next 10 years or even five years ... let alone 100?
Trying to anticipate the future of live performance is just one dilemma faced by our civic theatres. Those grand old dames, the Royal Theatre and the McPherson Playhouse, are challenged in a multitude of ways.
1. Passing the buck: Sometimes, it seems our civic theatres are starved for love. Last year, Victoria Coun. Geoff Young suggested the City of Victoria either literally hand the Mac over to the arts community or close the theatre.
Young’s tough-love stance reflects the fact it costs Victoria $750,000 a year to run it (a $350,000 operating grant and a $400,000 capital grant). For the city, the financial burden seems unfair, as folk from all over Greater Victoria attend shows there. For politicians like Young, the Mac’s a bit of a boondoggle.
The situation with the Royal Theatre is different — although one senses the municipalities stuck with funding it also view it as something as an albatross. The Royal is funded jointly by Saanich, Oak Bay and Victoria. Each year it receives a capital grant of $480,000 and an operating grant of $100,000. But other Greater Victoria municipalities — for example, Esquimalt or Colwood — contribute nothing, even though their citizens flock to the Royal to enjoy the likes of Herbie Hancock, Tegan and Sara or Steve Martin.
2. Every municipality wants its own fiefdom: Langford Mayor Stew Young recently made headlines when he announced he’d like to build a performing arts theatre in what’s touted as the fastest-growing municipality on southern Vancouver Island. Making the declaration, Young proudly noted Langford has built “$30 to $40 million” worth of facilities in the last five years, including City Centre Park, which has an ice rink, a stadium and a bowling alley.
There’s something of a sports team mentality (“Go Canucks!”) to the notion that each of Greater Victoria’s 13 municipalities must function as an independent mini-city, complete with performing arts theatre, recreation centre, police department, fire department and so on. Yet such tiny-town boosterism isn’t helping the Royal and the Mac. In an ideal world, our civic theatres would receive financial support from all of Greater Victoria, rather than a few core municipalities.
Such funding would almost certainly require amalgamation, which won’t happen any time soon, if ever. Typically, when the lobby group Amalgamation Yes tried to convince municipalities to include a question about amalgamation on 2014 ballots, a handful (including Saanich, with the largest population) immediately dismissed the idea.
3. Burgeoning competition: If new municipal theatres are built, the Royal and Mac must compete with them for audiences. And for our civic theatres, audiences have already eroded, thanks to the emergence of new venues such as the Alix Goolden Hall and the Metro Theatre. As well, there’s increased competition from the University of Victoria’s Farquhar Auditorium, lately more aggressive in booking name acts such as Martin Short, Cheap Trick and Nana Mouskouri.
3. Victoria’s civic theatres largely pay their own way: In financial terms, civic theatres appear to be considered less important than, say, the swimming pool or soccer fields.
In Victoria (as with most municipalities) staff wages for such recreational amenities are largely covered by taxes. Not so the Royal and Mac theatres.
Yes, they receive some funding — annual operating grants for both theatres total $450,000.
But our civic theatres are largely expected to support themselves with what is, essentially, a commercial business model. The yearly operating cost for the Royal and Mac is $3 million, much of that going to 180 full and part-time employees. Our non-profit civic theatres must generate sufficient cash via box-office revenues to pay their employees, whereas if no one went to the Crystal Pool, the staff would still get a paycheque.
4. That means high rental rates: For many Greater Victoria arts groups — typically on shoestring budgets — the rental rates at the Mac and the Royal are prohibitively high. For instance, renting theMac costs $990 a day for non-profit groups. Yet given the current financial setup, the theatres cannot afford to be rented for less.
For the typical company of amateur performers, the Mac and the Royal are too expensive. Gone are the days when school choirs or performing arts festivals would get their day to shine at the Royal or the Mac. It’s a shame, as this experience is traditionally an essential function of the civic theatre. If young people grow into adulthood without a historical connection to these theatres, they become detached and indifferent to their future.
5. Cultural shift: Symphony orchestras and opera companies across North America are in trouble because audience levels are declining. These days, most people attending classical music concerts are retirement age. A 2012 study by the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts suggests classical music attendance by those aged 35 to 54 was down, while those 65 and up attended at the highest levels.
The situation in Canada is similar. How will it affect the Royal if the Victoria Symphony and Pacific Opera Victoria, both major users, ride into the sunset?
6. The future: Over the years, Victoria’s arts community has lobbied for the building a new, state-of-the-art performing arts centre (a decade ago there was a proposal for putting a $45-million, 1,800-seat theatre at the Inner Harbour). Yet with traditional forms of performing arts in peril, and with a technological revolution only just beginning, who knows where entertainment will go in the next few decades?
What role will Twitter, Facebook or other social media play? (Some Broadway theatres have already established “twitter nights” for die-hard gadget-lovers.) Will the audience wear Google Glass? What role will virtual reality or some other computer-generated wonderment play?
As far as building new civic theatres goes, it might be wise to wait, lest we get stuck with outdated monuments to culture. As far as our existing civic theatres go, it would be wise to reassess how they are funded (the Royal and Mac haven’t had a grant increase in 15 years). And perhaps we should consider whether they are truly serving — and being made fully accessible to — our community.
This month, our city commemorates the centenary of the Royal Theatre and the McPherson Playhouse with a week of celebratory performances. But what happens after that? Perhaps the biggest question is: Are we Victorians — and let’s include Greater Victorians — making plans for their future?
© Copyright Times Colonist