Loyal patrons helped keep Coal Mine going
In the early days of the pandemic, Diana Bentley and Ted Dykstra were mostly holed up at home with their son, Henry. But the co-founders of the Coal Mine Theatre also felt the presence of a fourth entity: the theatre itself.
“I mean, I’m ridiculous,” said Bentley. “But I would have conversations with it … It was kind of my first baby in a way. And it was our creation, and this thing that we put so much blood and sweat and life into.”
The Coal Mine was founded in 2014, but it received its first Canada Council for the Arts grant for the final show it staged before the pandemic, “Marjorie Prime,” starring the late Martha Henry. The theatre has otherwise been funded by box office income and private donations.
It’s a tiny storefront on the Danforth that seats a maximum 85 people per performance, with a strong public and critical reputation.
Against the odds, Coal Mine has survived and the Star can exclusively announce its winter 2022 half season: two highly acclaimed American plays, “The Antipodes” by Pulitzer Prize winner Annie Baker and Lisa D’Amour’s “Detroit,” a finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer.
Each show will run for six weeks at a maximum audience capacity of 60.
Although the company received another Canada Council grant during the pandemic, Bentley and Dykstra attribute their theatre’s survival squarely to their audience.
They ran two fundraising campaigns during the pandemic, offering donors a place on their “Wall of Fame.” These donations are “incredibly generous and we couldn’t exist without them,” said Dykstra.
Just before the pandemic, they received a windfall from an unexpected benefactor. The night that “Marjorie Prime” closed in late February 2020, Martha Henry handed Dykstra an envelope, “and she bid me adieu and she went into the night,” said Dykstra. It was a cheque for $5,000, essentially Henry’s whole salary for the show.
“She said it was one of the best experiences she’d had in the theatre, and that she was blessed and lucky,” said Dykstra. “We knew she was becoming unwell.” Henry died last month.
The theatre’s board has strongly backed Bentley and Dykstra, insisting that they continue to receive their salaries during the pandemic rather than collect the Canada Emergency Response Benefit.
“We had a meeting at the beginning,” said Bentley, “and the board said no, they felt it was really, really important that we kept working.” The theatre availed itself of other government supports and, with the co-operation of its landlord, paid a quarter of the rent on the Coal Mine space.
“The hardest thing has been to endure the waiting and to keep sharp creatively,” said Dykstra. “Diana’s been writing a lot. I composed music for a rock opera so I sat in the basement, literally for a year, and just wrote music.” Both are also actors and did some TV work, he on “The Expanse” and she on “Departure” among other shows.
Throughout it all, though, they felt the presence of the theatre, keeping them going. “The Coal Mine is a funny thing. It really has its own life,” said Bentley. “I don’t think it’s going anywhere.”
“THE ANTIPODES,” DIRECTED BY TED DYKSTRA, RUNS JAN. 23 TO MARCH 6. “DETROIT,” DIRECTED BY JILL HARPER, RUNS APRIL 10 TO MAY 22. SEE COALMINETHEATRE.COM FOR INFORMATION.