Attending an annual general meeting might not seem high on a list of entertaining ways to spend an afternoon. Yet despite sharing news of its largest deficit ever in 2023, the Shaw Festival meeting held in its lobby Friday left those in attendance hopeful for a brighter season to come.
Patrons, donors and Shaw supporters may even have left the theatre whistling or humming, after a break in the the offering of the theatre’s financial statement featuring a very stirring rendition by ensemble member Taurian Teelucksingh of the unforgettable On the Street Where You Live. The performance likely sent those in attendance home to order tickets to My Fair Lady, if they didn’t already have them.
Also to entertain the audience between discussions of festival finances was Élodie Gillett, who sang a song from The Secret Garden, with Ryan deSouza accompanying her and Teelucksingh on the piano.
Although all who spoke praised the artistic quality of last season, it was likened to a “dizzying roller coaster ride” by board chair Ian Joseph and repeated as an apt description of the season by treasurer Greg Prince. They both referred to a significant operating deficit and low audience numbers which failed to return to pre-pandemic levels, balanced by the high quality of the productions, and successful fundraising efforts.
Last year’s audiences totalled 210,00 seats sold, whereas the baseline of 2019 reached 267,000, Prince said.”We didn’t get there. We thought we would,” he added, but the lingering effects of the pandemic were underestimated.
So despite operating revenues of $36.7 million, the largest ever, reported Prince, “cost escalations and attendance shortfalls” led to a deficit of $5.7 million.
And while a deficit was expected, it wasn’t anticipated to be that high, with hopes for a better year with most of the pandemic issues behind them. However rising costs, inflation that created higher interest rates on debt repayment, and disappointing ticket sales led to the deficit.
Other unexpected factors included wildfires spreading across Canada scaring off some U.S. patrons, problems with flooding in the Royal George, the higher-than-expected cost of understudies due to continuing illnesses, and cancelled performances requiring refunds when there were not enough understudies available, said Shaw executive director Tim Jennings.
The withdrawal of government funding that helped support the theatre during the pandemic was also a factor, he said.
Artistically the 2023 season was described as the boldest and best yet, and one to be proud of, as the Shaw worked toward fulfilling a “vision for a more deeply connected world through theatre,” said Jennings.
The increased cost of producing that season was a gamble, and necessary to ensure a stronger future, but the impact of the pandemic wasn’t as far in the past as expected.
Jennings explained the Shaw wasn’t the only performing arts organization to experience financial difficulties in 2023, that other large theatre companies across Canada, if asked, would likely agree they were also “in deep trouble.” What they learned, he added, was that the theatre “is in recovery, not recovered.”
Jennings said he hopes the next couple of years “we will normalize, whatever that means,” and return seat sales to pre-pandemic levels. However, he pointed out, it took seven years to recover after SARS, “a much less impactful event than COVID.”
He spoke of needing to rethink the 2024 season and plan for capital budget reductions before the season was announced. However one of the continuing costs that can’t be avoided is the work that needs to be done to the Royal George, with a clay foundation that was never intended to last this long. On heavy rain days last season, most of the water ended up in the basement of the theatre, and the work that needs to be done can’t be put off any longer, he said.
Artistic director Tim Carroll spoke highly of Jennings at the hem through difficult times, saying he thought he knew the executive director well, but “you learn a lot more about people when times are hard. I learned a lot more about Tim Jennings,” all of it increasing his admiration for the man who steered the ship through the pandemic years, showing how much he cares for the Shaw.
Carroll also addressed a budget target that fell short but said “the world was and is slower to recover than most of us wanted it to be.”
“We knew planning for 2023 was a risky business,” he continued. “Every year is a risky business, but we knew it was more of a risk than usual.”
They went ahead and presented an ambitious season, including putting up the Spiegeltent, which represented an extra cost — it’s not cheap to rent, he said — but he acknowledged that audiences loved it, and it will be back in 2024.
Family programming, which has become a mainstay of recent seasons, does not bring returns as great as other performances, but is important and will continue. “A childhood without theatre is a deprived one,” he said, and to him the evidence of its impact on children who do have that opportunity is seen through their eyes gleaming when they are watching a stage performance.
Rather than creating an audience for tomorrow, he added, family plays are creating an audience “for the day after tomorrow. If you have never seen a play as a child, how likely is it when you hit 50 that you will go to the theatre?”
Today’s younger generation is one that needs “more human connections than any other generation, and nothing can do it as well as theatre.”
To ensure another season of high level artistic programming is delivered with a better financial outcome, operating costs are being cut, Prince told those gathered in the Shaw lobby. Seeing the issues early enough in 2023 allowed for “significant changes to the 2024 operating model,” and the streamlining and cuts made “will allow us to start retiring this debt quickly and efficiently,” he said, while assuring Shaw patrons and supporters of a 2024 season “that will be extremely provocative artistically.”
Early sales for this year “are excellent, and well ahead of year-to-date budget targets,” Prince added.
.png;w=120;h=80;mode=crop)
