Good scoopola by Jeff Lee at the Vancouver Sun, thanks to someone clearly unhappy about this going on behind the scenes. What do you think? Should the city have bailed them out or not? Done it in camera or not?
(Jeff’s blog post indicates the vote was unanimous.)
21 responses so far ↓
1 IanS // Sep 16, 2011 at 11:45 am
Without considering it too carefully, I’ll go with “yes”, better to bail them out than not. I’d hate to see the Playhouse go under.
Having said that, I would hope that some conditions were imposed to ensure that it doesn’t get into this position again.
2 jesse // Sep 16, 2011 at 11:48 am
It’s a TARP!
3 Morry // Sep 16, 2011 at 12:48 pm
Well is should be debated in open forum. But yes by all means a good resolution.
4 Baran // Sep 16, 2011 at 1:37 pm
I really hope this doesn’t become another election “issue”. The vote was unanimous, right?
5 Everyman // Sep 16, 2011 at 2:58 pm
That’s quite unfair to the Arts Club, who has gone out and fundraised and so on to provide similar theatre. As much as I’ve enjoyed the Playhouse, maybe Vancouver can’t support two large theatre companies.
6 Bill Lee // Sep 16, 2011 at 3:09 pm
Anything but the Ahts Club, home of the Jerry Lewis humour division (“laughing as they enter the turnstiles”)
Still I would let the Playhouse die. As a theatre company.
I would rather Studio 58 take their place.
Next there will be another half-million to the break-the-Vancouver East Culture Centre which was always a haven for West-side vultures.
Even their present digs are a lie. And we can assume that they will apply the same twee redevelopment to the York (ex-Alhambra).
From Jeff Lee’s article :
” The head offices will move into Playhouse Theatre facilities rent-free — at a value of $20,000 a year — and the call centre and the
promotional and marketing arm running the successful Playhouse Wine Festival will move into a city office building at Broadway and Cambie.
They will all be relocated to the Wall building when it is complete in 2014, Reimer said.”
Which Broadway and Cambie building? Is that the Fairchild development on the the north-west corner, or the collection of 1940s buildings on the south side of Broadway there, filled with “good works” and charities.
Having been given season tickets once, I found that the neighbouring seats were those who don’t care what the play is but want to be seen and make a show in the audience for the “right side of town” person.
It would be better to have a fleet of buses meet there every night and drive 300 people out to various venues around town and suburbs for theatre.
And the VSO troubles and rent allowances? And for this they raise city taxes and fees?
7 Higgins // Sep 16, 2011 at 4:53 pm
LMAO!
Robertson Visioneers are in dire need of some good high fives, chest thumping, hoola hop news.
Jang comes up with Little Saigon, Gregor mingles with Greenpeace eco-pirates and koooks,Geoff delivers pies to old ladies… is by any chance an election coming?
8 Higgins // Sep 16, 2011 at 4:53 pm
LMAO!
Robertson Visioneers are in dire need of some good high fives, chest thumping, hoola hop news.
Jang comes up with Little Saigon, Gregor mingles with Greenpeace eco-pirates and koooks,Geoff delivers pies to old ladies… is by any chance an election coming?
9 Michelle // Sep 16, 2011 at 7:58 pm
This must be part of Penny Ballem’s “a drop in a bucket” program. Who know who’s their daddy!
I do not believe in coincidences, therefore I don’t think this was a charitable City Hal act. There is more to the story , there is always more especially when Vision and their appointed CManager are neck deep in it.
Any takers?
10 tf // Sep 16, 2011 at 8:38 pm
The Playhouse has long been tied to the City.
It’s theatre home is City-owned. This has been a blessing and a curse. A blessing because it has a stage, but a curse because it is subject to the civic booking agents and the company has no control over extending a hit, closing a flop, etc. The schedule is set and there’s no flexibility. Compared to the Arts Club on just that point, the Arts Club owns its’ own spaces and can run everyday all year around. The Playhouse gets perhaps 4 shows a season.
Also – the company has been forced to move its’ production/office/storage/wardrobe shops 4 times over the last years as False Creek/Olympic Village has pushed them out. Imagine that expense and disruption?
I’m not surprised to hear that the Playhouse has had financial difficulties and I am glad that the City has supported the company. I look forward to what Max Reimer will do in the next years. His artistic choices are more interesting than the, by-necessity, more commercial choices of the Arts Club. It’s like the difference between pop music and classical – both have value in the cultural landscape and in my opinion, we would suffer without the classical.
11 Glissando Remmy // Sep 16, 2011 at 10:58 pm
The Thought Of The Evening
“Mr. ART & Mrs. BUREAUCRACY – A recipe for Disaster (a theatre play in Three acts… all sad)”
Art and bureaucracy do not mix. Unless we are in 1987, Yugoslavia. No, really!
Just a thought. when does the alarm bell starts ringing at the Chief incompetent’s desk inside City Hall… when they are in the hole, what… $50,000, maybe $200,000, say half a million, a cool ONE $$$$$$$?
Maybe Michelle #8 was right on, with Ballem’s “a drop in a bucket”, maybe there is a threshold of wasted dollars under which, there is no reaction coming from the “leadership”.
Once, Linda Evangelista, the fashion model said that she is not getting out of bed for less than $10,000 per day. Maybe for the City Hall comrades it is a bit more.
Hey, what’s public money to Penny Ballem?
I am tempted to say… tango music to her ears!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARfumOj5GLw
We live in Vancouver and this keeps us busy.
12 Roger Kemble // Sep 17, 2011 at 8:02 am
Bill Lee @ #6
“Still I would let the Playhouse die.” Yup, best let go before it festers . . .
Gallimaufry’s The Beard was Vancouver thespian’s apex.
As you can see from telly’s Corner Gas, it’s been “Good bye yellow brick road” ever since.
Wayne found the early exit!
Et tu Canadiennse . . . the Canadian dream’s gone west and we haven’t even noticed.
Why should we: it’s bullshit, bike lanes and beer pubs all the way down!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPWH5TlbloU&feature=player_embedded
C$1M, (is that all?), for Play House is just kicking the can down the road.
13 Bobbie Bees // Sep 17, 2011 at 8:45 am
Hrrrrrmmmmmmm.
As usual, most right-wingers on here have conveniently overlooked one thing.
The Vancouver Playhouse also supplies support and logistics for smaller independent productions.
I really can’t see the Arts Club doing the same.
But then again, if Stephen Harper is your master and the NPA are your saviours, then little facts won’t stop you from believing in an alternate reality.
14 Everyman // Sep 17, 2011 at 10:24 am
I see there is further information on this both at the Globe & Mail site and the Vancouver Sun.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/bc-politics/city-bails-out-vancouver-playhouse-museum-for-more-than-1-million/article2169786/
http://blogs.vancouversun.com/2011/09/16/vancouver-posts-confidential-playhouse-theatre-bailout-documents-online/
It does take me back to my original point: if the City already supports the Playhouse with a grant in the form of theatre space, is it fair the Playhouse receive an operating grant as well? The Arts Club may get an operating grant from the City, but they don’t get free theatre space in addition to that. The calibre and choice of productions have grown to be remarkably similar. If anything, the Arts Club had started to surpass the Playhouse.
BobbieBees: wouldn’t that void be filled by either the Arts Club or some other mechanism?
Finally, bailing out the museum seems a no-brainer, If the City doesn’t tell its own story, who will?
15 Paul T. // Sep 17, 2011 at 12:02 pm
As a supporter of the Arts in the city, I’m happy to see money go towards one of the arts companies. Like there stuff or not, the arts are an important part of a vibrant city.
HOWEVER, yet again Gregor and Vision Vancouver just DON’T get it. Taxpayer dollars can’t be treated as their own money that they can just give out as they please. It’s micromanaging on the worst scale.
When extra funding is proposed then ALL of council should be involved and it should be a VERY public process. Anything less is just unfair and disgraceful. Being elected to council does not give you a stack of blank cheques from the taxpayer’s bank account.
This mayor and council still doesn’t get that and I don’t think they ever will.
16 Bobbie Bees // Sep 17, 2011 at 1:44 pm
Paul T., Please remember that it was a unanimous as per Jeff Lee, and if it wasn’t you’d surely have heard Suzanne caterwauling about it by now.
Everyman, I can’t see the Arts Club or such providing any type of similar services to other art groups. Why on earth would they ‘subsidize’ their own competition.
No, I think the struggles of the Vancouver Playhouse are similar to the struggles of the city owned concession stands. The city claims the stands don’t make money, but then again, the stands are never open except for a few periods out of the year. Not a very wise use of resources that require year round maintenance.
Or the same could be said about the Blodel Conservatory. Apparently, the Blodel wasn’t making any money in 2006-2007-2008-2009. Gee, I wonder why?
Sometimes, the city bureaucracy makes me wonder.
17 rf // Sep 17, 2011 at 3:09 pm
i think that what was relly exposed is how a lousy choice of plays can be a financial disaster. i saw “a little night music” last year. it was utterly terrible!!!!!!! i asked people from all age groups what they thought. All but 1 out of 2 eighty year olds thought it was horrendous. It was about 60 years out of date, comically. Anyone lose their job over it? OMG was it terrible.
18 Everyman // Sep 17, 2011 at 4:37 pm
rf- A Little Night Music was written by Stephen Sondheim in 1973, and is based on an Ingmar Bergman film. It was just successfully revived in New York and London. No doubt if you were expecting “Rent” you’d be sadly disappointed.
19 Paul T. // Sep 17, 2011 at 5:22 pm
Sondheim is certainly an acquired taste. He really has never composed anything that could be called a “crowd pleaser.” HOWEVER, he’s a tremendously talented composer and lyricist who clearly is above writing music and lyrics that become just another catchy tune. I think most performers will agree that Sondheim’s works are some of the most challenging to perform, but also the most rewarding.
Sadly audiences don’t necessarily grasp that concept.
20 Sean Bickerton // Sep 18, 2011 at 11:09 am
Unfortunately the Playhouse, once thriving 20 years ago, is the author of its own misfortune. Other arts organizations around the city are thriving, such as Arts Club, Music On Main, the VSO and Bard, because they’ve embraced change, understand their community and foster excellence.
All arts groups have faced the same tsunami of events over the past three years – the financial meltdown that eliminated or reduced donations from those with investment income, corporations and foundations. The replacement of traditionally reliable print advertising with a baffling array of online options, and complications arising from the Olympics and cultural olympiad, etc.
But it is outrageous that a year after Councillor Deal arranged to let the Playhouse theatrical company take over the city-owned theatre in what was billed as “the solution to the problem” then, we are now being asked to double down by pouring in a $1,000,000 more in cash along with free offices and new theatre and production space, all at taxpayer expense.
Worse, this money is coming out of the cultural precinct fund meant to promote all arts organizations within that precinct, not just Clr. Deal’s favourite.
Second, the city has limited resources constrained by increasing demand for services fueled by a constantly growing population but stagnant revenues. Plowing $1,000,000 into the Playhouse restricts our ability to help all of the other thousands of smaller arts groups around the city.
Third, Clr Deal states that she will be striking a “super-committee” to oversee the Playhouse business plan that Dr. Ballem stated still has holes in it. What does the city of of Vancouver or Clr. Deal know about running a theatrical company?
Finally, why was this done in a secret back-room deal as an emergency, when Clr. Deal has been working closely on this file for several years now, and knew well their situation a year ago. That in-camera vote was taken with a shotgun to their heads with a disastrous scenario the only alternative to voting “yes”. What kind of management of the city’s cultural assets is that?
Councillor Deal’s plans to save the Playhouse keep getting more and more expensive and she’s writing cheques the city cannot afford.
21 rf // Sep 27, 2011 at 12:25 pm
whoops. I stand corrected. It was “A Brief Encounter” by Noel Coward that sucked so utterly and royally.
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