Earlier this week I had an opportunity to attend a media event to announce a new summer theatre festival for next year in downtown St. Catharines. In fact, a year from this week is when the festival is going to kick off.
Anyone who has attended just about any summer theatre festival anywhere in Canada is familiar with the name Norm Foster, as his witty and avuncular plays grace many a playbill during the summer months. In fact, on average there are about 150 productions of his plays in any given year. But not until now has there been an entire theatre festival dedicated to his plays, and for many the response will certainly be "It's about time!"
Foster, just wrapping up a two-week-and-a-bit run of his play On a First Name Basis with Patricia Vanstone at Port Hope's historic Cameco Capitol Arts Centre this weekend, was on hand Monday afternoon at the new Foster Festival offices on St. Paul Street in downtown St. Catharines. He says he's both humbled and thrilled to finally have a festival named after him.
Calling himself the "lipstick on the pig", Foster knows full well there is lots to do between now and when the Festival officially launches next summer at the brand-spanking new First Ontario Performing Arts Centre downtown. That work will be left to two "very strong women" as Foster put it in a release, Executive Director Emily Oriold and Artistic Director Patricia Vanstone; yes the same Patricia Vanstone with whom Foster is appearing alongside in Port Hope at the moment. Foster quips "I'm just riding on their coattails, doing what they tell me to do."
For one thing, funding now has to be raised to put on the festival which will have a budget of nearly $550,000 in its first year. The Festival hopes to raise $300,000 through sponsorship, corporate donations and a crowd-funding campaign with Indiegogo that went online earlier this week.
The full 2016 season along with principal artists and creative teams will be announced in October, with tickets going on sale shortly afterwards.
Right now what is known is the Foster Festival will produce three of Foster's plays over a nine-week run of three weeks each starting in June of 2016. Personally I would have opted for four plays with a two-week run each for a total of eight weeks, but time will tell if three weeks per play is doable in the 200-seat Robertson Theatre.
There will be no shortage of Foster plays from which to choose for the inaugural season: Foster has written close to 60 plays thus far and has three currently in development, all at the same time. What's more, the Festival will hold exclusive rights to the world premieres of all of his future work.
It was also announced earlier this week plans for local job creation and educational outreach through the Foster Festival with a planned relationship to be established with Brock University's Department of Dramatic Arts. The new Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine & Performing Arts will be right next door to the Performing Arts Centre, of course, and the Foster Festival will have access to a state-of-the-art production facility along with providing summer employment and educational opportunities to the Department's current and graduating students. This is important, as they will be able to get that first crucial work experience in a professional environment when they need it most.
The Foster Festival will also offer an innovative Drama Club, designed to provide a drama component to existing after-school arts programming by partnering with The Kristen French Child Advocacy Centre of Niagara. In addition, they plan to "foster talent" through the Festival, as emerging playwrights will be invited to develop their writing under the mentorship of Norm Foster himself.
There will also be the establishment of an annual playwriting competition for area youth.
So what can we expect this time next year? Hopefully full houses in the Robertson Theatre, of course. With eight performances per week for three weeks each play, that works out to about 4800 seats available for each run with a regular inclusive ticket price of $42. That certainly falls into the ballpark of what summer theatre patrons are expected to pay elsewhere, and let's face it the Robertson Theatre will be a far nicer venue than many of the summer theatre locations I've visited over the years.
But the close proximity of the Shaw Festival and other summer entertainment fare in the area cannot be ignored, so a lot of preparation and planning will have to go into making the Foster Festival both a financial and an artistic success. It can be done, and I think we have a formidable artistic team already in place, but as always, the devil will be in the details.
These are indeed exciting times in downtown St. Catharines, and the thought of a summer theatre festival in the first season of the PAC is certainly welcome news. Who better to be the "lipstick" on the theatrical pig than Norm Foster?
If anyone is bankable in the summertime, it's Mr. Foster. Get writing those plays, sir!
June 19th, 2015.
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