Coverage Debate/Op-Ed

[Gaetan Charlebois]

I decided to raise the issue of national coverage of regional theatre in my
paper, this week. This is what was published:


"Op-Art
Covering Exotica

As I was toiling away researching The Encylcopedia of Canadian Theatre on
the WWW (www.canadiantheatre.com) and continue to toil to keep it updated,
I find myself digging for information on far off and exotic places.
Like Regina.
I go to the Globe and Mail and their A&E section tells me, again, about 2
Pianos, 4 Hands or dissects, again, the phenomenon of Phantom of the Opera
(post-Garth Drabinsky). I picked up the first Saturday edition of The
National Post and found not a single word about theatre, let alone theatre
in the regions. (I mean, there may have been something about theatre but
who knows what with that wacko design.) Macleans? Faggedaboudit.
I try the CBC and Newsworld. There is Laurie Brown, bless her Rachel Green
'do, on a show called On The Arts. I'll see interviews with Whitney Houston
or a review of an epic American movie. Regional theatre? Maybe, if your
region doesn't fall west of Stratford or east of Montreal (and the latter
only if your name is Robert Lepage or Cirque du Soleil).
Folks, I read two to six newspapers a day looking for information about
theatre and I'll be damned if I've ever read of any stars of Western or
Atlantic theatre.
When I test-launched The Encyclopedia I got one hell of a rude awakening.
There is actually theatre out there and, believe it or not, there are
people who want to talk about it. I've heard about Frank Moher and read his
magnificent play Odd Jobs. I've discovered oft-produced playwrights like
Conni Massing and Craig Nelson and an amateur house in Edmonton called
Walterdale that has launched dozens of careers; even the careers of
playwrights who have been produced in Central Canada.
Along with this rising wonder at it all, comes outrage. Every day thousands
of people lay down their 60 cents or switch on CBC to be told they are
getting a 'national' picture. And we lay down our 60 cents (and pay our CBC
tax dollars) without questioning the hubris of this nor getting the least
bit perturbed by it.
Fact is, it wasn't always this way. When my first play was produced in a
tiny theatre in Edmonton, I did some 40 media interviews in two weeks and
it was this coverage that got the play, despite tepid reviews, produced
across the country, on TV and radio, in French and in English. It was this
coverage that made my unassuming two-character chamber work a cash cow (and
paid my way to Europe for three months).
Things have devolved. Wiser people (or cynics) tell me that the media
exists to serve the advertisers. Well, weep, then, and think of this: if WO
Mitchell were alive today, had no national reputation (because no one had
ever heard of him) and his little gem Back to Beulah was premiered, as it
was, at Theatre Calgary...that's where it would end and some 10,000 people
who saw it at Centaur would be none the wiser...indeed, they'd be
considerably less so.

Gaëtan L. Charlebois"