2023: The Good, the Bad, the Ludicrous
...including one of worst campaigns ever to come out the "feminist" NGO sector
A letter came in the mail the other day from Tarragon Theatre – one of those fundraising letters that organizations send out each December, hoping to find patrons in a generous mood. Subscriptions and single ticket sales, it says, are down 30% from where they were before the pandemic. My bet is on this being the case across the live arts but no one has looked into the topic beyond reporting about individual arts organizations. It’s one of the under-reported stories of 2023, and the over-optimistic read of the Statistics Canada report on the great bounce-back of 2022, which btw included sports, did not help. CAPACOA here breaks down why the news from that report is not as rosy as it sounds. The live performance real GDP percentage is far from pre–pandemic levels due to, yes, cost of living and inflation, but also, as CAPACOA’s own research shows, the fact that “the number of performing arts companies and presenting organizations decreased by 24% between 2019 and 2022”. One quarter of all the live arts organizations and presenters, in other words, did not survive the pandemic and the lockdowns.
I can anecdotally confirm that the sold-out shows are few and far between. The two Toronto companies which are selling out have small theatre spaces: Crow’s and Coal Mine. What on earth is Soulpepper doing? I’ve never seen it emptier than in 2023. And even when you spot a bit of good news coming at you, there’s something else that offsets it: if I had to give the Least Woke Programming Award of 2023, it would go to the Shaw Festival this year, but the festival’s recently concluded season was pretty workaday. You won’t remember any of the productions in a couple of years. The new season brochure came in the mail and the only thing remotely interesting is a new Candida. Sherlock Holmes? One Man, Two Guvnors? Agatha Christie and My Fair Lady? Shaw Fest turning into the Mirvish on the Lake, I see.
Another unexpected thing I’ve noticed this year is some inflexibly high ticket prices for mid-size opera productions. While you can easily get $40 rush tickets for ballet at the Four Seasons Centre this year, and any range of under $50 tickets for the COC productions, if you wanted to see Against the Grain’s Daisy Evans take on Bartok’s The Bluebeard at the Harbourfront, there were no tickets under $100 available. Seriously, guys? And just today I was looking to get a ticket for The Merry Widow, an English language adaptation by the Toronto Operetta Theatre playing at the Jane Mallet Theatre until January 2, and there are no tickets under $86.
Just about any straight theatre performance, including opening nights at Canadian Stage, will have $30 tickets available, either rush or arts worker or student or senior or what have you.
I’m thinking the critics reviewing anything these days should pay for their own tickets. It will absolutely affect the way they see the work and how patient they are with it. Perhaps the venues should introduce the critic price tier for freelance critics; the critics writing for large media houses can have their newsrooms purchase the full-price tickets. There are way too many generous reviews about, for everything.
On to the Long Play awards for 2023: