[URBAN NOTE] "Why Toronto’s city-owned theatres need a miracle worker"
The Globe and Mail carries Martin Knelman's report observing the major issues facing Toronto's city-owned theatres. These problems sound dishearteningly structural, not just contingent on bad luck.
Clyde Wagner, Luminato’s executive producer, is leaving the arts festival to take charge of the three theatres owned by the City of Toronto - the Sony Centre, the St. Lawrence Centre and the Toronto Centre for the Performing Arts.
I’d call it a rescue mission, because each of these three theatres has lost its way in recent years. Now, they need to be reinvented in order to help Toronto solidify its place as one of North America’s top theatre destinations - a reputation that also depends on the Mirvish organization with its four theatres, a lively fringe scene and two internationally renowned summer festivals (Stratford and Shaw) within easy reach of the city.
Despite a spiffy renovation, the Sony Centre (formerly the O’Keefe Centre) has never quite recovered from the departure of the Canadian Opera Company and the National Ballet of Canada to the new Four Seasons Centre opera house a decade ago.
In the same period, its neighbour, the St. Lawrence Centre, lost its mandate as the place where original Canadian plays could draw large audiences and achieve mainstream success, instead relying first on shows already certified as hits in London or New York, and later driving away long-time subscribers with obscure plays from Europe.
Further north, the Toronto Centre for the Performing Arts has never recovered from the shock and damage inflicted when its former operator, Livent, crashed amid charges of fraud - which eventually landed Garth Drabinsky and his Livent partner Myron Gottlieb in jail. The largest of its four spaces, once the home of major Livent musicals, became a white elephant; eventually, it was reconfigured as two smaller spaces, entailing a loss of almost 1,000 seats.
Clyde Wagner, Luminato’s executive producer, is leaving the arts festival to take charge of the three theatres owned by the City of Toronto - the Sony Centre, the St. Lawrence Centre and the Toronto Centre for the Performing Arts.
I’d call it a rescue mission, because each of these three theatres has lost its way in recent years. Now, they need to be reinvented in order to help Toronto solidify its place as one of North America’s top theatre destinations - a reputation that also depends on the Mirvish organization with its four theatres, a lively fringe scene and two internationally renowned summer festivals (Stratford and Shaw) within easy reach of the city.
Despite a spiffy renovation, the Sony Centre (formerly the O’Keefe Centre) has never quite recovered from the departure of the Canadian Opera Company and the National Ballet of Canada to the new Four Seasons Centre opera house a decade ago.
In the same period, its neighbour, the St. Lawrence Centre, lost its mandate as the place where original Canadian plays could draw large audiences and achieve mainstream success, instead relying first on shows already certified as hits in London or New York, and later driving away long-time subscribers with obscure plays from Europe.
Further north, the Toronto Centre for the Performing Arts has never recovered from the shock and damage inflicted when its former operator, Livent, crashed amid charges of fraud - which eventually landed Garth Drabinsky and his Livent partner Myron Gottlieb in jail. The largest of its four spaces, once the home of major Livent musicals, became a white elephant; eventually, it was reconfigured as two smaller spaces, entailing a loss of almost 1,000 seats.