Just days after Factory Theatre’s production of “Lady Sunrise” came to a victorious end last year, artistic director Nina Lee Aquino and the rest of her crew, ensemble, and staff watched as Canada’s entire performing arts sector came to a shuddering halt. 

The COVID-19 pandemic had been spreading through Asia and Europe since December 2019, but it was only a day after the World Health Organization declared it a global pandemic on March 11 that Canadian officials began to take drastic action. For Canadian theatres, music venues, and art centres, the public health restrictions that followed closed the curtains on live performances indefinitely. 

Aquino had to call her crew and cast with the horrible news — the rest of their season had to be cancelled immediately. Indoor theatres are dangerous spaces for disease transmission: tightly packed, enclosed, facing a stage where actors yell and laugh and shout. “Theatre is all about gathering. It’s all about forming communities night after night,” Aquino explains. “And that was the very thing COVID-19 was against.”

Public health restrictions have forced performing arts organizations to seek out funding in unexpected places like emergency government aid and even crowdfunding. Some organizations are integrating 21st century live streaming into the ancient art of theatrical performance. With performing arts centres shut down indefinitely, artists and technical crews are finding ways to put themselves on stage digitally and expand their audience more than they ever imagined. 

These are incredibly tough times. According to the Toronto Arts Council, non-profit arts organizations in Toronto, one of Canada’s major arts hubs, lost $183 million in ticket sales over the course of 2020. (By comparison, performance revenue for non-profits arts organizations across all Canada was $292.2 million in 2016, according to Statistics Canada data). They offer everything from world-class theatre to drama classes for children and youth in poor communities. Without financial support to pay staff and rent spaces, these organizations simply would not exist. 

Aquino and other performing arts leaders say they’re willing to do what it takes to keep their organizations alive. The arts provide a place for audiences to gather amid the pandemic’s incredible uncertainty — to laugh, forget, weep, reflect, and learn. Performing artists may not be on the front lines per se, but Aquino says they still have an important role to play. “Theatre will be there to try and do its part in ensuring that our audiences are still enriched in some way, shape, or form,” she says. “If I have to explore other means to do that — then let’s do it.” 

On with the show

After the pandemic struck Montreal, Black Theatre Workshop, Canada’s longest running Black theatre company, was forced to postpone its co-production with Centaur Theatre Company of “Fences”, a play telling the story of a Black garbage collector’s life in 1950s America. The play’s set had already been built. Half of the costumes were ready to go. Contracts with all the artists had already been signed. “They had clauses for if you have to cancel something or if artists get sick,” says Adele Benoit, the managing director of Black Theatre Workshop, “but there’s nothing that talks about if the whole industry shuts down.”

Technologically speaking, Black Theatre Workshop was caught off guard. Benoit says it took the theatre’s staff a while to set themselves up for remote work. “In the beginning, the staff didn’t expect to be here a year later,” she says. “For the first month, I think everyone was pretty optimistic that we’d be back in the office soon enough and that this was all a temporary situation.” To put it mildly, it wasn’t. Benoit and her staff are still working from home over a year after the first public restrictions began. 

Many of the artists and crews who lit, produced, built, and starred in Canadian theatrical productions have had a far more difficult time. Not only are they losing out on paid performances, but the side gigs traditionally worked by theatre artists (like food service) are very vulnerable to COVID-19 related shutdowns. The last year has prompted a lot of reflection from Canadian performing artists. “I think that artists who already struggle with financial stability have been taking this time to re-evaluate how they practice their art in the world and also what else they can do to make a livelihood,” says Anisa Cameron, president of the board of the Quebec Drama Federation. 

She says some artists are returning to school to earn the qualifications necessary to teach drama at the university level, a far more financially stable career than acting alone. Benoit says Black Theatre Workshop makes a point of commissioning artists for workshops — internal performances of plays used to test out a script or performance. “We are trying to make sure we are hiring artists, many not to the extent where we would if we were doing a full production, but to try and do a whole bunch of different projects so we are getting money out to artists individually,” Benoit says. 

Others are still performing to audiences during the pandemic. Benoit says some Black Theatre Workshop artists are leveraging their social media accounts to reach fans, and even live-streaming play readings. Some theatre companies are even staging web-based shows. Staging a play over Zoom has given Factory Theatre the space to explore a live stage performance in ways they haven’t done before. “Virtual theatre has had its benefits because it has been able to cross boundaries that live theatre could not,” Aquino says. 

One of those benefits is the ability to reach audiences who simply could not go to the theatre before. Aquino points to those with disabilities. Casey Prescott, CEO of the Yukon Arts Centre, says their decision to purchase video streaming equipment for live performances is very important for expanding their audience across the Far North — and the country. “I’m not interested in creating digital content,” he says. “I’m interested in creating access to what we’re creating on our stages. That equipment now allows grandparents in Toronto to watch their grandchild do their dance recital in Whitehorse. That’s a huge benefit.” 

Filling the coffers

When live performance venues first closed their doors in March, they didn’t just give up ticket revenue. According to the Toronto Arts Council, some larger performing arts organizations who own their own buildings are struggling because they lost rental income while being saddled with upkeep and maintenance costs. Haroon Khalid, interim communications manager for the Toronto Arts Council, says it is difficult to determine for sure how many organizations in the city closed their doors during the pandemic. “Government support continues to keep afloat several arts organizations that would have otherwise shut down,” he wrote in a statement to Future of Good. 

In response, the Toronto Arts Council and the Toronto Arts Foundation launched the TOArtist COVID Response Fund, an initiative that distributed $836,347 to 982 individual Toronto artists. The Toronto Arts Foundation also received a $1 million contribution from the Hal Jackman Foundation that went out to 80 small and mid-sized charitable arts organizations who lost revenue due to COVID-19 related closures. The Toronto Arts Council is also in the process of developing a new fund “to support artists and arts organizations for sector reopening and recovery,” according to their statement. 

In Whitehorse, the Yukon Arts Centre had to completely reinvent its business model. Prescott says they lost a third of their budget because of the drop in attendees. They couldn’t sell tickets. Venue rentals went out the window. This forced the Yukon Arts Centre to adapt in a drastic way. “Let’s cut everything that we don’t need and let’s just reframe our expense and revenue lines,” Prescott recalls. “I just made sure that every month we had money to program with.” Federal relief money, along with help from the Yukon government and the Canada Council for the Arts gave them enough confidence to plan programming in advance. 

As with all arts organizations, the Yukon Arts Centre had to make tough decisions. Prescott says they had to cut everywhere. The Yukon Arts Centre decided not to go through with hiring for several staff positions. Their budget for visiting artists per year dropped. Prescott says even major arts organizations like the Vancouver Playhouse, Mirvish Productions, or the Stratford Theatre Festival had suffered.  “Nobody had a situation where you can only sell 50 seats,” he says. 

Currently, Prescott says he’s excited to see just 5 percent of his normal ticket revenue. The Yukon Arts Centre is able to offer live performances but at a very limited capacity — around 25 percent of a 420-seat theatre. Hard as that has been, Prescott says it is also forcing the performing arts community to really reimagine the robustness of their sector. “We’ve got to be running organizations that have to be running sustainably,” he says. “You have to consider the worst case scenario when you’re running an organization. And I think everyone now, moving forward will. I daresay there will be fewer organizations moving forward that will not have a contingency.” 

Toronto’s Factory Theatre was helped along during the pandemic by support from TD Bank. Aquino says the theatre had other financial sponsors, but TD’s allowed them to run free programming for their 2020-2021 season. It paid for crews, actors, staff, and all related expenses. This was a first for Factory Theatre, although Aquino acknowledges it isn’t unheard of in the global theatre community for sponsors to pay for a free season. “It was important for us to be able to make theatre as accessible to everyone as possible because I think, right now, people need it the most,” she says. 

A more inclusive ensemble

Many performing arts organizations are exploring hybrid digital-stage live performances. This is far from their only consideration. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, questions around equity, racism, and inclusion are also surfacing within the Canadian performing arts sector, especially after the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in May 2020. “The pandemic has afforded us an opportunity to make necessary and long-time-coming changes — and that’s not just within the theatre,” Cameron says. “I think everything is up for grabs in terms of…making it more sustainable, more equitable, and a healthier environment to work in. Theatre is just a microcosm of the real world.” 

She believes that will include bringing in a more inclusive Canadian theatre by ensuring artists of all backgrounds are both welcome and represented. There’s a long history of companies such as Black Theatre Workshop running artist mentorship programs geared towards young Black and other emerging artists. She says the Geordie Theatre , the Segal Centre for Performing Arts, and Imago Theatre — all in Montreal — are working towards more inclusive performance. “They’re making necessary changes in programming and in the way that they run their companies…to be more inclusive,” Cameron says. 

Going through the killing of George Floyd and the subsequent uprising against racial justice was very tough for Black Theatre Workshop’s crew, staff, and artists. “It was gut-wrenching because we were all at home and couldn’t react publicly with art, which is what we would normally want to do,” Benoit says. Their response to Floyd’s killing is making its way into the dramaturgical process for Black Theatre Company’s plays. Meanwhile, communities within Montreal and around the country rallied around Black organizations. “We were one of the organizations that benefited from that,” she says. “In terms of fundraising, we were able to fundraise more than we had normally been able to. We can put that into more creative projects.” 

Of course, some organizations still need to wait for public health restrictions to lift before they can begin the important work of diversifying Canada’s performance arts sector. ADVANCE Music Canada, a Black collective focused on improving conditions for Black people within Canada’s music industry, has spent the last year fighting for policy changes around internships and more the diversity of radio rotations. “When we come out of the pandemic and lockdowns and go back to somewhat of a normal life…how we can support the people within the community to be better positioned for any projects they’re working on,” says Keziah Myers, executive director of ADVANCE Music Canada.

One way is by connecting venues with Black music professionals. She says Black event producers or music businesses are sometimes denied venue bookings (or forced to pay premiums) due to racist assumptions that a Black event will lead to violence. But she says it’s hard to even have that conversation with venue owners right now because of public health restrictions across Canada. “We definitely can have a conversation about live music now,” she says. “It’s just they won’t be enacted in many cases until these live venues open up.” 

Another way for the Canadian arts sector to accelerate these inclusion efforts is to prioritize BIPOC-led arts organizations (and artists themselves). In July 2020, Paulina O’Kieffe-Anthony and Kai ner Maa Pitanta, two Toronto-based arts educators, started facilitating 10 online consultations into systemic anti-Black racism and inequity within the city’s arts sector on behalf of the Toronto Arts Council. The Council now has an outreach and access program manager who leads efforts focused on Black arts communities. 

“The pandemic has also emphasized the deep inequities, including issues of race, poverty, access to technology, and more, that already existed,” their statement says. “The pandemic has exposed just how deeply these issues are embedded within the various structures that the sector has in place and the urgent need to address these issues.” 

Curtain call

Many performing arts organizations in Canada are scrappy non-profits or charities with shoestring budgets. At the best of times, artists and technical crews contend with precarious working conditions, long hours, and low pay. While it isn’t clear when performing arts spaces will be allowed to re-open across Canada, arts organization leaders say they are used to balancing the demands of their craft with marginal budgets. For many artists, their work is their identity. 

Arts organizations may not be at the forefront of COVID-19 prevention or treatment efforts, yet live performance — be it theatre, dance, or music — is as essential as ever during the pandemic. “Storytelling is medicine,” Aquino says. “Storytelling is a transformative tool and storytelling is a way to keep morale up, especially during these times when everybody is terrified, depressed, and in despair.” 

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