Dispute forcing Calgary theatre to fiscal wall

A spat with the Alberta Workers Compensation Board has one Calgary community theatre company facing its very own fiscal cliff.

The Front Row Centre Players Society, whose next production, Spamalot, opens Jan. 11, are facing a final appeal with the Workers Compensation Board in a case they say has implications for every volunteer- driven community arts group in Alberta.

The spat arose out of an injury suffered by a volunteer during a production of Chess in October, 2010. A woman fractured her wrist helping to build a set and then filed a claim with the Workers Compensation Board, which they paid.

The WCB then informed Front Row Centre Players that they were required to pay a WCB premium for every volunteer hour worked at the theatre, because they fall under a designation of live theatre/ballet, which the WCB calls a ‘mandatory industry.’

“Live theatre is a mandatory industry providing coverage to individuals performing a number of functions,” wrote Alberta Workers Compensation Board spokesperson Shawn Friedenberger in an e-mail to the Herald on Monday, “from stage hands to ushers to production teams.

“In terms of premiums, these reflect the risk to protect the amateur volunteers and any employees that make theatre possible for all Albertans to enjoy. Due to the nature of the jobs performed, claims do happen and can have a significant impact on the volunteer’s life circumstances. As such, volunteers are covered while performing unpaid work for the theatre company.”

As a result, Front Row Centre Theatre Players Society — a volunteer-driven community theatre com- pany — is now looking at paying workers’ comp premiums on 40,000 volunteer hours, which, according to Front Row Centre Players’ Society Vice-President Janos Zeller could cost the company between $3,000 and $4,000.

While Zeller says his company could absorb the hit, the implications for Alberta’s community arts organizations could be severe.

“We’d take a bit of a hit, but we’re not fighting this just for our personal means,” says Zeller. “There are tons of (Alberta) arts organizations — small, little theatre companies who put in all these volunteer hours, and they can’t afford $3,000 a year.”

The company, which recently joined together with Storybook Theatre to build a new theatre and artspace in the Beddington Community Centre, has until mid-January to file a final appeal, where they hope the compensation board will distinguish between amateur production companies and professional ones — a distinction the WCB appears to make in Safe Stages, a guidebook published by Theatre Alberta.

“We’re very concerned about other theatre groups that will be impacted by this,” Zeller says. “I know several who won’t be able to function if this policy goes through.

“We’ll lose a lot of small little companies that put on some wonderful, fantastic work for local (Alberta) communities, and I think that would be really sad — particularly with Calgary being the cultural capital of Canada for 2012.”