Not dead yet

>> The idealistic Montreal Young Company faces a hard reality

by AMY BARRATT

Something’s missing.
The Montreal Young Company was only present on the theatre scene for two seasons, but the fact that it is not producing anything this winter is being felt as a loss, both among artists and the greater community.

This is the company founded by Canadian theatre legend Bill Glassco in order to showcase young Montreal-trained actors and encourage them to stay and work in the city. Performing two shows in repertory at the Saidye in 2000 and another two in 2001, the company generated genuine excitement and drew critical acclaim. So what happened?

The main reason for the MYC’s absence from the current season is all too familiar in the arts community: they didn’t get their funding. Reached by the Mirror last week, both Glassco and general manager Jane Needles sounded hurt, but defiant. Both intimated that the granting bodies may have been frightened off by what they perceived as a move toward “bilingualism.”

The company found out in mid-December that neither the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec (CALQ) nor the Conseil des arts de la communauté urbaine de Montréal (CACUM) would be renewing their support in 2002. By that time, casting had already been done for a production of George F. Walker’s Nothing Sacred, to be performed at Concordia’s D.B. Clarke theatre.

Nothing Sacred was to have been performed only in English, but with half of the actors drawn from the French side. Later in the year, Glassco had planned a collaboration with young francophone director Jean-Stéphane Roy.

The arts councils may also have been scared off by the MYC’s poor showing at the box office. Attendance for last year’s Undiscovered Country and After the Dance was a miserable 37 per cent of capacity, despite benefiting from the Saidye’s subscriber base. The move downtown to D.B. Clarke was a response to the realisation

that the company’s target audience–young adults–weren’t making the trek to the Saidye.
“The hardest part in all of this,” says Needles, “is the enormous spin-off. It has affected between 35 and 50 people who were expecting two to three months’ work. For actors and technicians, that’s a big chunk of your income.” Needless to say, there’s no guarantee that all those people will find other employment for that period of time. Of course everyone knows that there’s always a risk when you rely on grant money, but companies regularly start work on productions before the money comes through, as otherwise they wouldn’t be ready in time.

Needles says that despite this major setback, “We’re determined not to go under, not to become another statistic.” A project in both languages is still on the back burner, and Glassco and Roy hope to collaborate on something small-scale as early as this fall. They’re not talking about a bilingual show, but about two “separate but linked productions” of the same play, using the same actors.

Glassco says he and Roy are currently pondering how to do something smaller, radically less expensive, but still “make a real impression.” As for the apparent skepticism of the arts councils, he says, “The way to show them it can be done is by doing it.”
Here’s wishing the MYC a swift recovery and a triumphant return to the scene. :