Toronto theatre festival SummerWorks has lost its federal funding from Canadian Heritage just weeks before it opens its 21st season.The festival drew criticism from the Prime Minister’s Office last year when it presented Homegrown, which dramatized playwright Catherine Frid’s year-and-a-half friendship with Shareef Abdelhaleem, one of the so-called Toronto 18 group accused of planning terrorist attacks in Toronto and Ottawa.
Andrew MacDougall, a spokesman for the PMO, told a Toronto newspaper last year that, “We are extremely disappointed that public money is being used to fund plays that glorify terrorism.”
When reached for comment, the spokesperson for the Minister of Canadian Heritage would not say whether last year’s production of Homegrown affected the decision regarding this year’s funding.
The suggestion that the play glorified terrorism, or was sympathetic to terrorists, was rebutted in several reviews of the play, which focused instead on the naïveté of the female lead, the fictionalized version of Frid.
Abdelhaleem was given a life sentence with no chance of parole for 10 years earlier this year, the last of the Toronto 18 to be sentenced. The admitted extremist’s role in the plot included ordering ammonium nitrate from an undercover police agent and designing a complicated system to store the chemicals and avoid detection.
A spokeman for Canadian Heritage was reported as saying the department receives about 10,000 requests for grants and other funding each year.
SummerWorks was relying on Canadian Heritage for about $45,000, or 22% of its budget, said Ruth Madoc-Jones, who has been on the SummerWorks board for four years. With barely a month to go before the festival launches its 21st season, news that it would not be receiving the funding it has received for five years came as a big surprise.
“It’s a significant shortfall very late in the game,” said Ms. Madoc-Jones.
In an attempt to make up for the lost funding, SummerWorks has raised ticket prices to $15 (up from $10), and has been forced to cancel some of the planned outdoor and ancillary shows, Ms. Madoc-Jones said.
The festival is also asking patrons and the general public for support and has been pleased with the results, she said.
Annie Gibson, publisher at Playwrights Canada Press, was one of the people who received SummerWorks’ call for help, and she responded with a donation immediately. Although she is not privy to Canadian Heritage’s reasons for not funding the festival this year, Ms. Gibson said she hopes it has nothing to do with their content.
“I really hope it doesn’t have anything to do with Homegrown,” she said. “Professionally, I don’t think it [does]. That would just be terrifying.”
Ms. Gibson, who did not see Homegrown, has followed the festival for years and in 2009 Playwrights Canada Press published an anthology of plays that had won SummerWorks’ playwright award for Outstanding New Play.
“I really hope that they can make [the money] up, because they’re such a great festival of new work,” she said.
As a theatre artist, director, dramaturge and performer herself, Ms. Madoc-Jones said the festival is an important launching point for upcoming theatre talents in Canada, and that the board is committed to seeing this season go forward.
“It’s a really valued festival within the artistic, theatre community,” she said, adding that they stand behind everything they program. “It’s a festival that encourages great exploration and risk taking.”
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Source: National Post
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