Introducing: The Centre

>>Stephen Pietrantoni looks to take
the theatre scene to business school

by Amy Barratt

“If you don’t have at least $8,000, you have no business putting on a show.”

So says Stephen Pietrantoni, founder, with business partner Sandra Lyons, of the recently launched Centre for Education and Theatre in Montreal.

Pietrantoni is aware that most independent shows in the anglo community are currently being produced for significantly less than eight grand. A huge supporter of local theatre, he isn’t suggesting these companies throw in the towel. Instead, he wants them to work together and acquire skills that allow them to do things on a larger scale.

In the course of a wide-ranging interview at the East-End headquarters of what Pietrantoni already shorthands as “The Centre,” words that come up over and over are “connecting” and “connectedness.”

“The single biggest mistake artists make,” Pietrantoni says, “is the scale of what they’re doing. We treat ourselves like we’re dying sometimes.

“We have to convince people it’s possible to invest in the arts and recoup your money. The problem is that without a certain scale, you can’t reach enough people to interest corporate sponsors.”

A native of Somerville, Massachusetts, Pietrantoni has called Montreal home since 1982, and in that time has done many jobs in local theatre including director (The Club), performer (Oh, Coward!, My Little Rant) producer (Oh, Coward, various special events) and administrator—the recent end of a three-year stint at the Quebec Drama Federation is what allowed him to focus his energies on bringing his long-envisioned Centre to life.

The Centre occupies a lovingly restored and redecorated space that formerly held a woodworking shop in the Grover Building on Parthenais. A firm believer that theatre ought to bring a little glamour into our humdrum lives, Pietrantoni is well aware that “it’s the dirty, unglamorous trench work that makes the magic happen.” That goes for the Centre too—a month or so ago, you could have found the impresario on his knees painstakingly scrubbing old varnish off the floors.

Among concrete plans for the Centre, Pietrantoni wants to offer a six-week “Management Institute” to train theatre students in the business of theatre. The students would be paid a small wage while training and have to commit to stay in town for at least a year after graduation. This last condition attempts to address what Pietrantoni sees as anglo theatre’s chronic brain drain.

“We’re cranking out actors [from NTS, Concordia, Dawson etc.] but do we have one job opportunity for them when they get out?” he asks rhetorically.

Giving small theatre companies the skills—in fundraising, audience development etc.—to take care of themselves is one of the Centre’s chief mandates. Over and over, Pietrantoni stresses the importance of working together, pooling resources rather than hoarding them.

“Maybe people can’t afford a full-time administrator, but if they don’t afford a quarter-time administrator, they’re in trouble.”

Another of the Centre’s goals is to put together a “database of theatregoers” that artists can make practical use of.

So where will the money come from for all of these projects? Private donors, partly, but mostly, government grants. We hear you groaning out there. The difference is that instead of asking for money for isolated projects, the Centre is focused on creating something larger, something good for artists, certainly, but also for the broader English community.

The Centre for Education and Theatre in
Montreal can be reached at cetm@cet-mtl.org,
and their web site should be up soon www.cet-mtl.org