Toronto theatres welcome refugees
A free-ticket program aims to attract Syrian newcomers to the artistic community
Although he knows it can’t compare to the upheaval experienced by a refugee from a war-torn country, Alec Toller has known the loneliness of moving from one place to another.
So, the director of the small but award-winning Circlesnake Productions was inspired to help Syrian refugees experience Canadian culture by offering free tickets to his company’s three upcoming productions. “Even when I moved from Ottawa to Victoria, which is so nowhere near that degree of change, I was so lonely,” he says. “There’s a really warm sense of welcoming that I think is something that the arts can do really well; to bring people into the culture we have.”
Across Canada, 68 companies are offering complimentary tickets to Syrian newcomers to any production or event until March 31, 2017 as part of a Canada Council for the Arts initiative.
In Toronto, that includes smaller outfits such as Nightwood Theatre and Coleman-Lemieux & Compagnie, and big ones such as the Canadian Opera Company and National Ballet of Canada.
The Canada Council announced $150,000 in additional funding for the initiative last December, with up to $50,000 from Sun Life Financial on top of that.
Young People’s Theatre (YPT), Toronto’s oldest not-for-profit theatre company, which celebrated its 50th anniversary last year, is providing free tickets to all of its performances in the 2016/2017 season, as well as a box office message service in both English and Arabic, an online box office in both languages and a team of volunteers fluent in both languages to make the theatregoing experience as welcoming as possible.
“We say that learning is at the centre of everything we do and we feel that this is a learning opportunity for our staff,” says Lois Adamson, education manager at YPT. “We recognize that we have a responsibility to do that.”
“We are also really lucky that we have the resources internally to be able to roll out something like this,” adds YPT community programs manager Amber Ebert.
Resources, however, are very lim- ited within smaller companies such as the Theatre Centre, which is also participating in the free-ticket program. But the company is also piloting the Newcomer Initiative, a training program within its café starting in November.
Partnering with the organization CultureLink, the Newcomer Initiative will provide one Syrian newcomer with about 20 hours of training per week in café management, barista skills, customer service and possible shadowing of other roles within the theatre.
“It was about making a small but meaningful impact with what we had,” says Zoe Sweet, the Theatre Centre’s café/bar manager and curator, who will act as the trainee’s men- tor. “Yes, we could do something theatrical, but because we have this café, we thought it would be a great space to welcome one more person. So, it was about using our assets and not just our theatre assets.”
Sweet says after the first trainee finishes the program, which is now running a crowdfunding campaign, the hope is that the Newcomer Initiative will expand to welcome more community members into the café’s kitchen to create a lunch program. It’s inspired by the Newcomer Kitchen at The Depanneur, a catering service that uses food prepared in the restaurant’s kitchen during offhours by Syrian newcomers.
Newcomer Kitchen is directly partnering on another theatre initiative: Like Mother, Like Daughter, directed by Ravi Jain and co-produced by Why Not Theatre, the Koffler Centre for the Arts and the London, England-based Complicite. It opens in Toronto on Oct. 24. The show features real intergenerational conversations between newcomer mothers and daughters of various nationalities (including one Syrian pair), with a meal featuring food prepared by Newcomer Kitchen’s cooks.
Like Mother, Like Daughter shows that companies don’t have to officially take part in the Canada Council’s ticketing program to engage with newcomers. Even indies such as Circlesnake are doing their share.
“I have a theatre company with zero money and very few resources,” says Toller, who is independently offering free tickets to three productions happening in intimate venues.
“I thought a variety of programming would be of interest . . . Whenever I go to an indie venue, I will meet new people; you can talk to the actors, the director, the writer afterwards. An actor can bow and then, two seconds later, they’re in the lobby talking to people,” he says, adding that not every newcomer’s taste will involve big-budget shows.
But Toller was touched by the Canada Council program and heartened that the arts haven’t been forgotten in Canada’s efforts to welcome Syrian refugees. He hopes these efforts will continue after the Syrian refugee crisis isn’t as hot a topic.
“It was about making a small but meaningful impact with what we had.” ZOE SWEET THEATRE CENTRE CURATOR