Community Theatre Forums - A Year In Review

Carol Beauchamp, former Executive Director of Theatre Ontario, presented the highlights of the past year's Community Theatre Forums, on Saturday afternoon at Theatre Ontario Festival 2014 in Sarnia.

Theatre Ontario Community Theatre Forum in Sault Ste. Marie

Forums were held in ten Ontario communities: Aurora, Collingwood, Georgetown, Kingston, London, Merrickville, North Bay, Oshawa, Peterborough, and Sault Ste. Marie, exploring the same question: What challenges can we identify that we can collectively address to work towards a successful future?

While there were unique issues in each community, twelve challenges emerged as common themes throughout the forums:

• Develop skilled talent: training and mentorship
• Developing balanced/engaging seasons
• Attract dedicated volunteers
• Develop funding resources
• Build loyal/sustainable audiences
• Improve inter-group communication and collaboration – sharing best practices
• Increase (public) community awareness/recognition
• Attract contributing members/increase membership
• Promoting/marketing theatre
• Nurture youth involvement
• Finding affordable venues/facilities
• Developing strong leadership and succession plan

Best practices were shared in many of these areas at our presentation in Sarnia.

This is not the end of the process.  First, there is an interest for more forums in other communities.  Second, Theatre Ontario is now exploring how we can most effectively share the best practices with a wider audience.

Read more about Theatre Ontario's Community Theatre Forums

Conversations Across Community Theatres

By Carol Beauchamp, Executive Director

I have been delighted to be a part of community theatre conversations that have been taking place in communities across the province.  So far Theatre Ontario has held five Community Theatre Discussion Forums in Aurora, Kingston, Georgetown, Oshawa, and Sault Ste Marie, with another two forums scheduled in London (October 20) and Merrickville (November 9).  We are currently exploring possible forums in North Bay, Collingwood, Burlington/Hamilton/Niagara corridor, Kitchener-Waterloo/Cambridge area, and Chatham/Sarnia/Windsor area.

Community Theatre Discussion Forum in Sault Ste. Marie

The discussions have been lively, and the participants are deeply engaged in the process of creating sustainable community theatre in their very diverse communities.  So far, we have observed some anticipated trends such as fund development and audience development and audience engagement challenges.  However, what we are also observing is that these broad-based issues mean different things to different organizations.  For example, for some organizations “fund development” means larger capital projects, beginning at $50,000 or more.  For other organizations, “fund development” means fundraising in order to stage a large-budget show, or to upgrade a small piece of equipment.

The same is true for “building audiences”: Some groups currently have a solid audience base and are very much looking to develop their audience for the future; others have a more immediate concern with dwindling audience numbers.

Each Forum has been as unique as each of the groups represented, with very specific challenges emerging for organizations in the communities in which they work.  For example, one challenge that emerged at the Oshawa Forum is that several groups have a “shared membership” and are casting shows from the same talent pool, with the conflicting schedules and seasons that come with that.

Community Theatre Discussion Forum in Kingston

The Forums have varied in size, but the key to active discussions has been the mix of people attending from different groups and organizations, creating a networking and  information exchange—it is exciting to see people who are considering starting a new group mixing with veterans who have belonged to companies for many years.

One personal observation is the value of the youth voice at these discussions: often younger members bring a different point of view, and can add some interesting dynamics to the conversation.  I’d encourage groups to invite and include at least one member who is not part of the “core leadership” of the group; it is great having  the depth of experience and knowledge of  long standing members, as well as the insights and observations that more recent or occasional  members bring to the table.  A wide variety of perspectives and understanding definitely generates a deeper level of understanding, as well as a deeper engagement in the process of ensuring that theatre remains a vibrant art form in our diverse communities.

We have shared the feedback with the attendees at each of the Forums, and we will be sharing the overall feedback at the end of the process.  The next phase of the process will be identifying ways to work collectively to address specific challenges — this brainstorming process has already begun, and will continue as the Community Theatre Discussion Forums progress.

Day Three and Four at Theatre Ontario Festival 2013

By Anne Mooney, Community Theatre Coordinator

On Friday afternoon, Playwright-in-Residence and local Queens’ professor John Lazarus had a terrific reading of his most recent work.  Well, actually, a something he has been working on for on and off for about five years – Sex With Feminists.  Okay, so the title grabbed me.  I won’t explain why, but after listening to John as he read pages from the script and embellished the connecting sections, I can’t wait for the first production of this play.  It was a funny and raunchy and … well, you’ll just have to see the final product.

John also shared with the group some of the tools he uses when writing plays.  Through personal stories, he was able to explain how his writing process has evolved.  The group worked through a series of games in which we explored how plot and character were integrated within writing.  As a group we defined characters and created situations in which the characters affected each other, wrote these ideas on cards and then tried to group the cards as cause and effect to begin to create plot lines.  It was a shortened but intense workshop and the group came away excited about their next writing project.

Thank you to John Lazarus and the support of the Playwrights Guild of Canada and the Canada Council for a stimulating afternoon.

Friday night’s play was the first of two Norm Foster productions.  Markham Little Theatre presented Mending Fences.  Foster explores the relationship between father and son and uses flashback and comedy as his medium.  Actors played multiple roles – Terry Browne playing Harry and Harry’s father while Steve Birtles played Drew, Young Drew and Young Harry.  Admirable work by all.  I remember a rather stale joke that all great Canadian plays take place in Saskatchewan, in winter, in a snow storm – no snow storm here, but a hockey game – does that count?  While this play could have fit that old cliché, the writing, the performances, and the technical achievement all worked to make this production rise above any cliché to create an evening of thoroughly enjoyable theatre.

Saturday afternoon, Carol Beauchamp, Executive Director of Theatre Ontario and Deb Sholdice, General Manager of the Blyth Festival facilitated a Community Theatre Discussion Forum about the challenges facing community theatre groups in Ontario.  Representatives from EODL, WODL, and ACT-CO (members of QUONTA were busy putting a show on the stage) worked to define the issues and challenges.  Future workshops in the various regions will continue the work that began at this stimulating meeting.

Saturday afternoon also marked the arrival of my colleague, Brandon Moore, whose post will take us to the end of Festival.

Conversations on Community Theatre

There’s clearly an enthusiasm in the community theatre sector to collaborate.  Nearly forty people came together in Aurora on a recent Monday evening for our first Theatre Ontario Community Theatre Discussion Forum to help articulate the challenges the sector is facing.

This Forum was co-hosted by the Association of Community Theatres—Central Ontario, and facilitated by Lucy White, Executive Director of the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres, and Carol Beauchamp, our Executive Director.

With participants representing theatres from Aurora, Beaverton, Caledon, Georgetown, Keswick, Markham, Newmarket, North York, Orangeville, Oshawa, Port Perry, Richmond Hill, Scarborough, and Tottenham, they explored the question “What challenges can we identify that we can collectively address to work towards a successful future?”

Primary challenges were identified, defined, categorized and named.  As this is the first of our series of Forums, we’re keeping the specific discussion “under our hats” for now—we want each Forum to start with an empty page in front of it.

But, as Lucy shared afterwards, “I guess it’s not surprising that all theatres share common challenges.”  Our long-term goal will be to build the partnerships that can address these challenges.

Our next Forum will be in Kingston at Theatre Ontario Festival on Saturday, May 18 at 2pm.  Join us in the Ontario Room of the Days Inn (the Festival Hotel.)  We’ve also begun conversations with the Eastern Ontario Drama League, QUONTA, and the Western Ontario Drama League about future Forums in each region.

Read more about our Theatre Ontario Community Theatre Discussion Forums on our website