Filling seats for English theatre should be priority instead of ticket prices
DEAR EDITOR:
Congratulations to Theatre Lac Brome on hiring celebrated bilingual Montrealbased actor Ellen David as its new artistic director – see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ellen_david TLB must now return to its primary legal mandate, which is to “operate an English-speaking theatre in the Eastern Townships in the region of Brome County”. It is because this mandate has been sadly neglected in recent years that TLB has lost, and even alienated, much of its traditional anglophone audience.
There is still a vast potential audience in our region thirsting for good Englishlanguage plays of the type that have been popular and successful here for years. There are hundreds of such plays, requiring few actors, inexpensive sets, props and costumes, and affordable royalties.
An excellent model is the 148-seat Hudson Village Theatre (www.villagetheatre.ca/), currently managed with great success by Dean Patrick Fleming, who is thoroughly familiar with Theatre Lac Brome and more than willing to help revive its fortunes. A good start might be to arrange some co-productions next season with HVT. They would be guaranteed box office hits.
No theatre can survive on ticket sales alone. In order to regain its anglophone audience and the trust of the community, TLB should concentrate on just filling its 161 seats for every performance rather than charging as much as possible. This will mean reducing some ticket prices to a level that our community can afford, like cinemas do. But any loss will be more than made up for by the increase in community support and enthusiasm. This in turn will attract major donors.
Once TLB returns to its basic mandate to produce English-speaking (mainly summer) theatre, there will still be ample opportunity to produce additional Frenchlanguage presentations and musical events. If prices are reasonable, these will also attract many anglophones. And Knowlton Players will continue to sell out all their English-language amateur performances at the theatre as they always do.
One caveat. Disappointingly, TLB has recently displayed a negative, defensive and obstructionist reaction in the face of much legitimate criticism, both of its programming and its lamentable administration and public relations. One egregious example among many was TLB board’s shocking email to its membership on September 27, in response to a written summary of the complaints of many of its members. The TLB email stated that the grievance letter “was sent on behalf of certain individuals who do NOT support the Theatre”. This is false and insulting, and demonstrates the board’s tin-eared disconnect from many of TLB’S members and potential supporters. This unfortunate attitude must change. We all want the same thing: good English-language theatre!
We are lucky to have a marvellous venue in Knowlton, new leadership for TLB, a strong and talented group of local actors in Knowlton Players, and an audience ready to fill the seats for both types of English theatre. Let’s make the most of these great assets.