March 4th, 2009, 5 Comments »
Not exclusively for the locals, I guess, because there are some links to some fun audio. A few quick notes on events and news that has crossed my transom:
- The SPARK Festival kicks off at the Belfry this week. I’m hoping to attend a reading of Joan MacLeod’s (man, no Wikipedia page, that’s just sad) new play “Another Home Invasion” on Monday night, and BASH’d: A Gay Rap Opera (good URL there) on Wednesday night.
- While walking downtown the other day, I noticed a poster for the exotically-named Ndidi Onukwulu. She’s performing at Herman’s Jazz Club on March 14. I checked out her MySpace page, and quite like her music. If I was down at SXSW, I’d go for sure.
- Theatre SKAM co-founder and former classmate Matthew Payne emailed about the stir they’re causing about funding cuts to the arts in BC. They recorded a spoofy version of a
Pat Benatar Bonnie Tyler classic, entitled Total Eclipse of the Arts, and made the cover of the local newspaper earlier in the week.
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November 20th, 2008, 8 Comments »
The Belfry Theatre is, in my view, the best producer of mainstream theatre in the province. They’re more consistent than The Arts Club or The Vancouver Playhouse, and yet they take more risks with the play choices.
Yesterday I got a media release from the Belfry, summarizing their AGM and reporting on their last year’s work. It reminded me that they’re also currently one of the most financially stable and successful theatres that I know of.
They have an huge subscriber base of 6700 people for a theatre that only seats 277. Their average attendance for their mainstage shows last season was a mind-boggling 92%. They recently extended their production runs from four to five weeks when many Canadian theatres are reducing theirs to three.
I’ve always been an keen observer of arts funding and economics, and so was interested to see where the Belfry got its money from. And, as regular readers know, I love a chart. I produced a couple. The first shows where the Belfry’s revenue comes from:
The second shows the blue chunk of the big pie–private fundraising:
I asked Mark Dusseault at the Belfry about why ‘gaming money’, funding from BC Lottery Corporation, is under ‘private fundraising’. He explained that there were various reasons: government accounting practice, no peer review process and the way the money used to be doled out.
When gaming was originally set up we (staff and volunteers from the theatre) had to go and work the events. We spent a couple of days a year either at a bingo parlour or casino. We were, in essence, fundraising. We had to apply to participate and there was no guarantee as to how much money we would make (or lose).
I actually remember doing this once at a casino for some Vancouver theatre company.
The green slice is public money from sundry agencies: Canada Council for the Arts, CRD Arts Development and BC Cultural Services are the biggest contributors. Their entire budget is about $2.3 this year.
Where Does the Money Go?
I suppose the other question is how is that money spent?
I don’t have any great insights into these numbers. I just wanted to explore them a little, and make pretty charts. Do you have any insights?
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November 17th, 2008, 1 Comment »
Last week we had the good fortune to be invited to the opening night of “Brilliant”, an Electric Company show (there’s a company that deserves a Wikipedia entry) playing at the Belfry. Here’s the blurb:
Brilliant! The Blinding Enlightenment of Nikola Tesla is an explosive, extradimensional and alarmingly theatrical exploration of one of the most formidable inventing minds of the past one hundred years.
The story, set in turn of the century New York, chronicles the career of Nikola Tesla, the inventor of alternating current, whose work in the field of electricity ushered-in the modern age.
The show was terrific. It’s the second Electric Company show I’ve seen, and they produce what feels like the most contemporary kind of theatre. It’s lively and detailed and a little provocative. The company draws on all the tools at its disposal–dance, song, gorgeous projections, clever staging–to render a satisfying if ephemeral vision of Tesla’s life. The show was exceptionally well-rehearsed, and the performances, staging and technical aspects were all a delight to watch.
In one scene, Tesla and Edison have a kind of singing and dancing duel at the World’s Fair. In another, Tesla walks among human-sized pigeons whose physicality is extraordinarily bird-like. The piece de resistance is a hilarious rendering of what early film looks like–all silent, flickering and performed at about double speed.
Plenty of Telling, Too Little Showing
One side effect of all this on-stage action is that the few ‘regular’ scenes feel banal and talky. This is probably reinforced by the play’s portrait of Tesla as an hermitic automaton. Very little character gets revealed–nobody really undergoes a change, in the classic dramatic sense. Two supporting characters thus feel pretty moot. In truth, I’d be happy to dispense with them, so that we just experience the dream-like story and stage magic for 90 minutes.
I also wanted a clearer explanation of Tesla’s inventions. The play takes pains to tell us just how extraordinary and ingenious the man was, but pretty much fails at showing us what he did. There’s plenty of talk about alternating current and direct current (wondering illustrated, I might add, with Slinkies), but nobody establishes why one is better. There’s passing mention of other inventions, but we’re mostly expected to take Tesla’s genius as a given. I’m not disputing that genius. But I do think it’s the play’s burden to explain it clearly.
My final complaint is that “Brilliant” was strikingly similar to “Studies in Motion: the Hauntings of Eadweard Muybridge” (I wrote a short post about it two years ago). That’s not surprising. They’re both biographical studies of difficult, creative inventors working in the first half of the twentieth century.
All of these are minor criticisms. “Brilliant” has already played in Vancouver (though I gather the Belfry’s is a ‘revamped’ production). But if you get a chance to catch the show, I heartily recommend it.
Alas, the Nerd Bias Reigns Supreme
Incidentally, Tesla’s Wikipedia entry is proof that the online encyclopedia has not beat the nerd bias. I checked a bunch of other Wikipedia entries for towering figures–Ghandi, Mandela, Picasso among others–of the 20th century. Not one of them had an entry as long as Tesla’s.
Disclosures regarding my relationship with the Belfry: I just figured I’d take a shot at this. Let’s see…in my final year of university, I did an independent theatre history study course and wrote a history of the Belfry Theatre. So, you know, I’ve always felt a little indebted. I have written a couple short pieces that, years ago, were presented in the studio theatre there (also, indebted). I have friends and colleagues amongst the Belfry’s artistic staff. Our tickets to the show were comped, because Julie and I have done a very little ad hoc consulting for the Belfry. We seriously considered the Belfry as a venue for our wedding…the list goes on and on.
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