Village Squire, 1978-10, Page 29theatres of its day through a Local
Initiatives Project grant. Many were the
theatres born that way in the early '70's
and few were the survivors when the
grants money ended. The Road Show was
one of the survivors, due to local support.
"The last few years have been really
tight," Rex says, "but we've pulled
through."
Support today comes from the City of
Guelph, the Ontario Arts Council as well as
a good deal of local fundraising. About a
quarter of the annual budget comes from
fundraising. another quarter from govern-
ment grants and the other half is made up
of box office receipts.
The Road Show Company operates with
a basic core staff of about nine, including
Rex, a combination production manager
and designer, a technical director and his
assistant. a publicist and a stage manager
and four actors. This core is augmented by
additional actors depending on the size of
the cast required for the show in
production.
The theatre achieved its greatest success
this spring when it staged the premiere of
the new children's musical play The
Cabbagetown Kids as its contribution to
the Guelph Spring Festival. The show told
the story of families living in two attached
houses in the traditional slum area of the
city of Toronto.
"Cabbagetown Kids brought in a lot of
people who'd never been here before,"
Rex said. The show was so popular that it
was decided to bring it back in September
for another run. There were also plans to
tour this show this past summer but there
just wasn't enough time to get it organized
so now the theatre is planning a summer
tour next year.
Winning recognition and wider audien-
ces is the next important step for the
theatre. Rex longs for the days when he
can regularly sell all 160 seats in the
theatre for every performance. As it is now
the theatre stages each show for a run of
three weeks but is only open the latter part
of each week. A show will be previewed on
a Wednesday and Thursday evening then
will open on the Friday night and run
regularly on Thursday, Friday and
Saturday evenings for the next two weeks
for a total of 10 official performances. It has
been difficult to draw audiences early in
the week, he says.
During that run of Cabbagetown Kids
many people showed up at the theatre and
expressed surprise that there was a
professional theatre in Guelph. It was the
first time they'd heard about the theatre.
Getting the word out is a problem for Road
Show. Although there is excellent
co-operation, for instance, from the local
daily newspaper, many people in the city
only read Toronto newspapers which, of
course, don't review plays at the Guelph
theatre.
Hopefully the lack of knowledge about
the theatre will be overcome this season
with the help of a special Wintario grant for
audience development which will give the
theatre enough money to explore some new
ways of getting the word out that there is a
professional theatre in Guelph and that it
is, in fact, the only professional operation
in central Ontario.
At present the theatre draws its
audience from Guelph itself as well as
Kitchener -Waterloo, Cambridge, and frpm
the surrounding smaller centres of Fergus,
Elora and Elmira. Because it is located in a
university town but also is the only theatre
around thus serving a wide variety of
people, the theatre has a problem deciding
just what should be put on stage. Part of
the audience wants classics and experi-
mental theatre while others want pretty
standard theatre fare. Rex must try to
balance the one against the other. So this
season, after restaging the Cabbagetown
Kids, the theatre will begin its regular
schedule with Vanities which tells of three
women recalling their high school days.
Rex says he likes that show alot.
Next up will be Let's Get A Divorce
which he says will be an artistic advance
for the theatre in that it is an 1890's French
Farce. It will challenge the actors he says
0(010f8gt8t0,f0f(80,8
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VILLAGE SQUIRE/OCTOBER 1978. PG.17.