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Evita is seldom mentioned among great works of theatre. The high-brow critics tend to dismiss it as schmaltz — a typical Andrew Lloyd Webber extravaganza of hummable tunes and lousy dialogue. At one level, it is. But it's also a story about the power of glamour, and its limits. It's a story of being torn between a higher calling and the cold realities of populism, politics and lean times.
“Show business kept us all alive,” the narrator sings bitterly in the first act. “But the star has gone, the glamour's worn thin / That's a pretty bad state for a state to be in.”
Perhaps it should come as no surprise, then, that Evita would appeal to the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, particularly to artistic director Des McAnuff, when planning the 2010 season. The story is an apt metaphor for the difficult position in which McAnuff finds himself. He came to Stratford in 2006 amid great fanfare from Broadway in order to chart a new path for North America's largest non-profit theatre company. Like Eva Perón, he is trying to satisfy many masters. Along with general director Antoni Cimonlino, he must find his way forward, burdened by the weight of Stratford's venerable history, the expectations placed upon institutions of high culture, and the need to remain popular and relevant.
All of that is difficult at the best of times, but the stakes have been raised dramatically by the dire North American economy. The recession wreaked havoc on ticket sales, donations and endowments for many of the country's leading arts and cultural institutions, Stratford included. Fortunately, a federal government bailout program spread over two years helped prevent the damage from getting worse. But the degree of support in the future is an open question. Both federal and provincial governments are struggling with massive deficits. Cutting spending is a foregone conclusion.
Stratford has responded by injecting more populist fare — there are three musicals and a production of Peter Pan this season in an already slim roster of 12 shows — along with old-fashioned star power. Stratford has brought back festival legend Christopher Plummer, and next year will welcome Hollywood and Broadway veteran Brian Dennehy. Some critics are less than impressed. “The desperation to get international names in at the expense of Canadians who have done brilliant direction at Stratford is galling,” according to Lynn Slotkin, theatre critic for CBC Radio One, adding the productions are “flashy, superficial, shallow work for the most part.” But there is also recognition of the difficult position Stratford is in. “There's a pressure to fill seats, but there's also a pressure to do worthy material,” says Toronto theatre critic Alec Scott. Other major institutions are under the same pressures, and similarly adjusting their programming to appeal to the masses in a tough market. The question is: Will it work? And if not, how much public support can the sector count on in the coming era of austerity?
In part due to the shrewd foresight of Cimolino, Stratford was perhaps better positioned than others to deal with the recession. Back in the 1990s, when Cimolino, formerly an actor and director at the festival, moved to the management side of the business, he was instrumental in establishing an endowment as well as a rainy-day fund to cope with future downturns. The fund grew to $5.6 million by 2008, when the festival was forced to tap into it for the first time to stay in the black.
The recession still hit Stratford hard. In the fall of 2008, people simply were not buying tickets for the upcoming season. Adjusting to such dramatic swings in the market is not easy for a theatre company. It has many fixed costs, and plans its budget and performance schedule well in advance of the time tickets go on sale. To cope, the organization asked employees to accept reduced hours, and eliminated a handful of full-time positions. The festival closed the 2008 season with a $2.6-million operating deficit — its first in 15 years — and reduced the number of plays in the following season to 12 from 16.
Other arts and cultural institutions faced the same challenges. The Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake saw ticket sales plummet by roughly 20% in late 2008, and was forced to lay off staff. The National Ballet of Canada's endowment collapsed, delivering only half the amount for which the organization budgeted, while the Canadian Opera Company saw a drop in donations. “When you look at the whole sector in North America, it is fragile,” says COC general director Alexander Neef.
As a result, Stratford is not the only one balancing artistic goals with audience favourites. The National Ballet, for example, added Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake to its past season. “We know if we do Swan Lake, lots and lots of people will come,” says executive director Kevin Garland. The National Ballet could likely sell 25,000 seats for Swan Lake, but only about 17,000 for a mixed program of less famous works. Likewise, Ballet BC is performing The Nutcracker to help drive ticket sales. The company — which wants to differentiate itself by showcasing contemporary Canadian works — fell into receivership in 2008, and a new team has since resurrected it. “I wouldn't say Nutcrackers are the cash cows they once were,” says executive director Jay Rankin, “but it's going to help grow the size of the company.”
The attitude at the Canadian Opera Company is slightly different. “The easy approach would be to just program a small group of operas that always sell,” says Neef. “But the danger with that is you can't sell a Carmen every year.” Nevertheless, the recession forced the organization to replace an expensive opera by Richard Strauss for an upcoming season with another by the same composer that was already in its repertoire, saving approximately $500,000.
At Stratford, the reviews for Evita have been mixed so far, while Peter Pan has garnered more favourable impressions. The play is a clever programming choice for tough times, appealing to both adults and children the festival can hook on theatre. Even so, ticket sales, which make up 75% of the festival's $60-million budget, have yet to fully recover. A few years ago, the festival sold 670,000 seats per season, and is now down to 510,000. Americans typically represent about one-third of Stratford's audience, and account for the bulk of the decline. The recession is not entirely responsible for the drop (dollar fluctuations and border tie-ups have contributed, too), but the troubled U.S. economy has only exacerbated a tough situation.
“The casual attendance has probably gone,” Cimolino concedes, referring to those who lived near the border and would visit Stratford for the day. To compensate, the festival is using the money it received from the Marquee Tourism Events Program to attract more devoted theatre fans from American markets it hasn't targeted before, such as Boston, Chicago and New York. Relying on a comeback in the American consumer is risky, given the economy is far from stable, and U.S. consumer confidence fell dramatically in June. But Cimolino credits the marketing effort in the U.S. to stopping the decline in American visitors.
Beyond the box office, the sector depends on enormous amounts of goodwill for revenue. The challenge for the COC, for example, is to find ways to increase donations. Fundraising accounts for approximately 40% of its $30-million budget. Opera connoisseurs continued to buy tickets throughout the recession, but skimped on donations. The COC developed a more aggressive campaign to solicit donations, which are recovering, but not quite to the level Neef would like. As a result, the COC is preparing to make a case to government to allow donors to write off a larger percentage of their gift from their tax returns.
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