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The authors of the report wonder whether we had not simply abandoned the theatre sector.
The theatre and the living arts will be among the big losers of the crisis of the COVID-19 and the confinement that it has led to ?
This is what suggests a report released this week by the Conseil québécois du théâtre, based on a survey conducted in the month of April last with 263 respondents and 97 community organizations.
Fragile environment, by definition, surfing the net generally on short-term projects that require months of preparation, living, makeover, permanent, the living arts are also considered by some as a luxury product, and the artists are afraid that they will happen far down the list of expenses that can pay consumers impoverished by the crisis.
And middle gregarious, that is, to the presence of the actors and the public first and foremost, it does not accommodate a conversion to digital that removes his main strengths.
These arts suffer a “loss of sense unprecedented,” note the authors of the report.
The figures from the survey alone are staggering. 87% of respondents have experienced cancellations of the show, 98 % of respondents lost wages, and 76 percent have lost opportunities to work. 3 out of every 5 people believe they are unable to undertake steps for the creation and/or job search. The majority of respondents (56.3 percent) were self-employed before the crisis, and the majority of responding organizations (72 %) had less than five employees.
For young companies, which often do not have access to operating grants, bankruptcy is not far away, when they take the decision to pay in spite of all the artists that they had already incurred, are the responsibility of the authors of the report.
In his reflection, the Conseil québécois du théâtre questions are more disturbing still. The very nature of theatre practice is the release of the game by the crisis, relève-t-on. Once it subsides, the tenuous link between the supply and demand in this sector will he be broken ? “The public will be at the appointment ? People who have suffered a financial loss have they funds to go to the theatre ? Will-they just feel like it ? What will happen to it for school trips ? ” you ask yourself.
The member survey was completed in April 2020. Two months later, it is clear that many questions remain about the immediate future of quebec theatre. Despite the announcement of the authorization of the gatherings interior of 50 people or less, the headache administrative that represents the creation of a show, from its conception to its dissemination, remains unsolved, as are the financial conditions that surround it. Moreover, as we know, the prohibition of the holding of festivals is maintained until the end of the month of August.
“The uncertainty that the workers live.its theatre is at the origin of a great anxiety, generated mainly by the character of the large gathering that requires their medium. The nature of their practice seems to be seriously threatened by the crisis, all the more because when you don’t know the outcome of the containment, and that a second wave of contagion is expected in the fall, ” write the authors of the report.
In the end, the authors of the report wonder whether we had not simply abandoned the theatre sector, by not giving it simply cannot afford to exist in the current context.
