Theatres across the country have been open without interruption for many months now. Are Canadian audiences going out to see live plays and musicals again at the same level they were pre-pandemic yet?In some cases, attendance does seem to be as strong as it ever has been.
The Stratford Festival, for instance, has set a target of 320,000 attendance for 2022 – and executive director Anita Gaffney tells me that the not-for-profit repertory theatre company is, at about the halfway point in the season, currently on track to hit that goal. That is about two-thirds of the 500,000 attendance the destination theatre used to attempt to draw in a pre-pandemic year.
Earlier this month, however, the federal government announced that Stratford would be receiving $10-million through its Major Events and Festivals Support Initiative . The festival got a head’s up about the pandemic recovery money in March, Gaffney says. So Stratford is now hoping to break even in 2022.