Saint John Theatre Company Brings Growth Centre Stage
When a group of passionate theatre-makers got together in 1990, they had one simple goal: to create a great theatre company in Saint John.
Stephen Tobias was one of them.
“All of us were a little frustrated that there was a limit to the opportunities that were available for us to do the things that we did,” Tobias says. “We all had formal training, experience and background in theatre and a lot of interest, but there wasn’t a thriving scene here.”
That’s how the Saint John Theatre Company got its start.
The company first started performing three shows a year. With the Imperial Theatre, Saint John’s premier performance venue still closed at the time, the company performed in high school auditoriums. Though they were a new company, Tobias, who is now the theatre company’s executive director, says the group was determined to produce quality work worthy of their audience and community.
“It was very much a hobby group. We found a group of like-minded people and from day one we pushed people really hard, something some were not used to. We started with two premises. One was when we talked about community theatre, we included the community of people that would be consuming that theatre, the audience,” he says.
“The other was the idea that like any other worthwhile endeavour, it took so much work just to do it, we had to be prepared to do a little bit extra work to do it well.”
Doing a little extra work has paid off.
Today, the Saint John Theatre Company Inc. is a registered charity with a volunteer board. It has grown from one staff member to eight and owns its own building on Princess Street in uptown Saint John. The company puts on several series of shows every year around the city and has become the largest provider of theatre in New Brunswick. Tobias says in 2016 the company provided working opportunities for about 130 professional performing artists and opportunities for about 150 local theatre artists.The company performed in 25 different New Brunswick venues last year for about 20,000 people.
“You compare that snapshot to those first couple of years, it’s a completely different animal,” Tobias says. “The company has literally doubled in size over the last three or four years.”
Though the Saint John Theatre Company is a registered charity, Tobias says its board has a business mentality when it comes to its operations.
“I was very lucky in the fact that we have a great board that is very cooperative and very growth-oriented and they’re not risk-averse. So we had a deal when we moved into the building [on Princess Street] … We agreed that we would try anything without fearing failure, within reason,” Tobias says. “If it didn’t work, fair enough, nobody would cry about that, because we did realize we’d never figure out what works and what won’t work unless we just do it.”
Tobias says it’s this approach that’s led the company to double in size, and it’s one other charities should adopt.
“The idea that a registered charity somehow works on different rules and principles … I mean, gravity is still gravity, one plus one is still two. The laws of physics and economics still apply. Not-for-profit, it’s a tax status, but it doesn’t change the rules of business,” he says. “We’ve been very entrepreneurial in our approach and we’ve done some things that didn’t work, but there are all kinds of things that we’ve tried that did work that if we tried to figure them out in advance, we wouldn’t have tried them.”
One of those things was their Music Series, where they rent out their rehearsal hall to local and from abroad performers.
“When we moved in here, the idea that this would be a music venue, we thought ‘we’re a theatre company, what the heck does that [have] to do with us?’ [But] this is one of the nicest listening rooms in the city of Saint John, maybe in southern New Brunswick,” Tobias says. “We’re starting to attract some national class talent [who] want to perform in this venue. They want a lovely intimate space that isn’t a bar.”
Today the company’s BMO Rehearsal Hall has become a sought-after venue in the city. They also rent the space out for other events such as film screenings, album release parties, comedy shows and more. By hosting outside entertainment, they also bring in another stream of revenue.
“Now it’s a huge performance venue for us and we’re trying to squeeze rehearsals in when we’re not using it as a venue.”
Tobias says another thing that’s contributed to the theatre company’s growth has been its collaboration with independent theatre groups. This practice serves several purposes. It prevents the market from bulking up with other companies, but it also allows the Saint John Theatre Company to expand its show offerings and provide resources to other artists who may not have them.
“We work with a number of really independent groups who work under our umbrella. We provide logistics, support, marketing, finance, facility, etcetera. They provide the art. Under our guidance and mentorship, if necessary,” says Tobias. “We have a number of independent teams that we work with that are doing their own thing. So a part of developing a season involves people coming to me, making their pitches … and we figure out a way or model where that project can work and then that happens.”
Though the theatre company’s business model has brought them continued success year-after-year, Tobias says it’s about to go through another evolution.
“I can see that we’re outgrowing who we are. Fortunately, I think top-to-bottom there is an agreement and an understanding that growth is good,” he says. “Growth is what progress looks like. No one has any desire to shrink the company or even to sit still for too long.”
In the coming years, the Saint John Theatre Company is looking at options to expand its facilities, developing more programs to help increase Southern New Brunswick’s young talent base, as well as creating an endowment fund to help grow the company’s programming. Tobias says he envisions the company providing quality experiences for both theatre-makers and theatre-goers.
“In a market like this, I don’t think the market is big enough to be a real specialist. I think we have to do all kinds of things really well in order to grow,” Tobias says.
“There are a lot of good organizations out there that do a really good job of satisfying theatre-makers, but I don’t think they worry too much about their audience. And there are others that worry too much about their audience and not enough about their makers. I think the good ones worry about both and that’s where I want us to be.”
Tobias argues that Saint John is the third largest centre of Anglophone culture and commerce east of Montreal, behind Halifax and St. John’s. He says the Saint John Theatre Company has the potential to be one of the biggest cultural institutions in the region.
“When I start to look at it from that perspective, I find it absolutely normal and appropriate that we should be looking to have some of the larger cultural assets in Atlantic Canada in Saint John,” he says. “I see no reason why the Saint John Theatre Company cannot in years to come be considered one of the larger cultural assets in Atlantic Canada. Why shouldn’t we?”
But no matter how big the company may get in the future, Tobias says it will remain true to its original mission of being connected to the community it serves.
“I do believe that cultural institutions, kind of like politics, the best [are] local. You’ve got to be tied to your community,” he says. “While the community of the Saint John Theatre Company is growing, we now regularly tour to Moncton and Fredericton and other areas. If what we’re doing doesn’t work for our audience and our partners in Saint John … if what we’re selling doesn’t interest them, the company doesn’t work.”