#55 – Sara Meurling
Sara Meurling is the Executive Director of the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres and has had a thirty year career in theatre with management roles at the Theatre Centre, the Young Centre for the Performing Arts, and Managing Director of Factory Theatre (as well as independent producing). Her community work has included: juror, advisor and committee member, and as Member of the Board of a number of organizations including STAF, Theatre Gargantua, the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts (and it predecessor, the TTA), and as a member of the Toronto Arts Council Theatre Committee. Sara has been PACT’s Executive Director since September 2014.
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Transcript
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Phil Rickaby
Welcome to Episode 56 of Stageworthy. I’m your host, Phil Rickaby. Stageworthy is a podcast about people in Canadian theatre. I’d love to hear from you. If you want to tell me about a project you’re working on or just want to drop me a line, you can find stage or the on Facebook and Twitter at stage where the pod and you can find the website at stageworthypodcast.com. If you liked the podcast, I hope you’ll subscribe on iTunes or Google music or whatever podcast app you use, and consider leaving a comment or rating. My guest Sara Meurling is an arts administrator and the executive director of the professional association of Canadian theatres.
Interesting Do you find that that working in nine to five in theatre, like thinking theatre living theatre from nine to five and then going to theatre? Is it? Do you find that draining? Do you find it difficult? Or is it?
Sara Meurling
I think, you know? The job gets tiring. Right. Yeah. And like any individual in order to enjoy leisure time activities, yeah. You have to be able to have the energy. And what can happen is that, especially if there’s a gap between the end of your workday and the ticket, yes, yes. Your energy drops right off. And then I don’t necessarily think it does service to the piece you’re seeing. Right, because you’re not bringing your full self. Yeah. Whereas if I go do something that is not theatre, right, that is dance, or I can sometimes have that. But my partner who works in the nonprofit sector, but not in the arts. One of the challenges I have is my big excitement for relaxation is putting on my pyjamas.
Phil Rickaby
You know, it’s funny because I have the same the same like I walk in the door and I’m like trackpants comfy clothes. I’m just sitting down.
Sara Meurling
Yep. And, and when you when you actively participate in going out for a living, going out as leisure. can be. Yeah, it’s not it’s not as alluring. Yeah. As it might be.
Phil Rickaby
Yeah. Because it’s still like there’s still that that because going out as part of your job. Yeah, it’s not like, it’s not special in that way. It’s like it’s still seems like part of your work day.
Sara Meurling
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, and as well, it also, it’s knowing too much. Like I sometimes feel that being a theatre professional can suck the magic out of the experience. Yeah. I sat on the door, a jury.
Phil Rickaby
That’s gotta be a tough job.
Sara Meurling
It was no, I was doing indie at that point. And so there were 70 shows. And what happens is at a certain point, nobody will go to theatre with you. Yeah, because you’d like to run out of you run out of partner partners. And I remember seeing are dreadful, dreadful show.
And I had taken my husband and he was like, I liked it. And he said, Why didn’t you like it? And I was like,
and I was like, because it wasn’t well done. And I don’t know why they did it. And he said, Well, I’m an audience member, and I liked it. I said, Well, I think it’s great. But my job is actually to be more than a passive receiver. I’m supposed to be able to I mean, I studied it. Yeah. You know, I can tell when someone’s clearly dropped a line or when the letting cue is laid. Or Yeah.
Phil Rickaby
Yeah, it’s tough to go it’s tough to go from when it’s hard to when you do it. It’s hard to turn off that part of your brain. Yeah, just sort of let the show take you. It’s really rare when that for that to happen. I’ve had a couple of experiences where that’s happened to me recently. But again, they are that’s kind of rare when I can just forget that I am that I know that inside.
Sara Meurling
Well and I that is it is it’s kind of a sad sadness. Yeah. And I think that that’s why the works that really do move. You are so extraordinary. You could have been you remember them and Use them as recharging events. That is why I do this. Yes, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So those are yeah, those are the good moments.
Phil Rickaby
Yeah. What does so I mean, I have a general idea about what pact is. But I’d love to know, more like, I think I might have sort of like, existed must do this. This is the name of a professional association of Canadian theatres. It must do something with that. But I don’t think I know the specifics of what pack does. So can you tell me and anybody who might be in the same boat as I do? What pack does?
Sara Meurling
Well, we we’ve had an evolved existence. So packed is 40 years old this year. We were founded in 1976. Originally, as the and this is going to sound like a lecture, please, please, originally as the group of theatres that came together to negotiate with the newly formed Canadian Actors Equity, because prior to that American Actors Equity, sort of operated in this jurisdiction, Canadian Actors Equity was formed. And they needed a management group to negotiate the very different landscape for Canadian theatres. Over the years, pact has grown, we now have 143 members. Originally, membership impact meant that you adhere to the negotiated Canadian theatre agreement. We now have two kinds of members, regular members and affiliates. And affiliates whose practice may not be supported by a quite traditional set of three and a half week rehearsal, three and a half week run our members but don’t necessarily use that agreement, it may still engage equity members, but they’re not actually adhering in that way. And so over the years, pact grew, we added different agreements, we negotiate with associated designers of Canada, playwrights guild of Canada, and we support the negotiations for our members in Quebec with the Quebec scenic artists Association, scenic designers have passed, and I’m not going to murder that acronym. as well. In addition to those agreements, we also provide professional development programmes. We do we have a lot of peer to peer support, maybe in theatres, I’m sure you’re aware, it’s very peer to peer. If you don’t know what to do, the easiest thing to do is to call a friend who you know, has done a similar thing and another theatre pack actually kind of acts like a nexus for that activity. One of the big things we do annually is our conference, which moves across the country was in Calgary, in 2016, was in Toronto in 2015, will be in Charlotte town in 2017, which is sort of the largest gathering of theatre professionals, sort of theatre leaders, AEDs, managing directors, senior staff, and it’s very much a networking opportunity. When I was not in a packed member company. I quite snugly referred to it as theatre summer camp for the rich kids. Which is not what it is. But I used to see people come out of it so energised and so excited, and having these new relationships and I realised that that’s really what it is. It’s not very often you get to sit in a room with a bunch of peers and have conversations about all the same things. We experience audience attrition, evolving, marketing, new trends, new artistic trends, because there’s a very active artistic conversation going on. And also being exposed to new ideas from elsewhere. So it’s a really it’s it was sort of our centrepiece. For a long time packed with very, you’re in membership or out of membership. Our new strategic plan is now about openness and inclusivity. And certainly working on a major programme around equity, diversity and inclusion in Canadian Theatre, which is based on sort of some training and learnings in social justice practice. So it’s not just about changing your policies, it’s really about identifying, you know, an individual generally theatre levers social location and how that impacts decision making and, and how unconscious bias plays out in institutions, which is really reflected in an underfunded theatre community. We don’t have a lot of money to do broad based auditions or searches and And as a result quite often, you end up with what looks like a close shot because you’re going to work with people, you know? Yes, yeah. And so it’s a way the programme is intended to break down the ways in which we look around us for other people. Yeah. And I’m very excited about that. It’s sort of it’s been one of my drives since I came here. Also, because they realise I’d had such a skewed perception of what the organisation did, one of the things I want to do is get out and talk to the community. We advocate for theatre at the federal government. We’re a member of the steering committee for the Canadian arts coalition. And we’re a founding member. So we’re pleased to see when the liberal culture platform literally picked up all of the Canadian arts coalition’s recommendations that had been on the table for 10 years. Right. And now our job is to sort of help the theatre community navigate through the challenges in, you know, funding assessment criteria in the new air.
Phil Rickaby
When you’re speaking about the, the, the theatre community, are you speaking broadly about the professional theatres, the equity theatres, are you talking about? The independent artists, which part of the when you’re specifically speaking about the theatre community? Is there an area of that that is just for you? Well, first,
Sara Meurling
I want to say there’s no such thing as an equity theatre. Okay. Yeah, that I think I want to make that really clear. It’s not like and I asked, see how the venue is a union venue. Project, yes. either engage equity artists through the CTA, or the independent theatre agreement, or the dot, the dance, Opera Theatre, or indie 2.0, or the festivals agreement or the I think it’s called cooperative now, I’m really professional. When I talk about the theatre community, I’m talking about the professional theatre community, it encompasses every size and shape of professional theatre, you know, the idea that professional theatre engages artists who have trained or are, are in the process emerging at the end of their training process, and who intend on pursuing careers as artists, or arts workers. Right. And, and that commitment is generally shown within companies by a commitment, a desire to pay, yes, a living wage to artists, whether they’re a member of Canadian Actors Equity or not, to pay our designers to pay our stage management to pay our front of house stuff, right. There are blended companies, generally organisations who are collectives that early stages of their evolution don’t have that capacity. That doesn’t mean they’re not professional. They’re sort of an emergent stage, right? Their existence. So it’s not, it doesn’t necessarily mean incorporated registered charities who are venue based. It It can include everything from a loose collective of artists, to you know, professional theatre activity, as it happens in the rhubarb festival, or in the fringe is arguably, there is a whole professional practice that is Bizon, within the Fringe Festivals in Canada.
Phil Rickaby
Absolutely. That’s actually a lot of the a lot of the people that I know, like, personally are the people who’ve come up through and are still like actively pursuing that still living is the Fringe Festival circuit, and that sort of thing. That’s a whole Canada hasn’t
Sara Meurling
has the biggest fringe circuit in the world. And from little tiny ones to big ones. And and certainly the the rise of the fringes in Canada has radically changed the scope of the landscape. In fact, it caused a bit of an explosion of activity. And I think it makes it quite exciting.
Phil Rickaby
I think so I think like for me, I know, first of all, there’s people that I know that I never would have met, if it wasn’t for the fringe circuit, who come from as far away as Australia to be as a part of the Canadian fringe circuit. There are here. Additionally, I know when I was in theatre school back in the 90s, fringe was a thing that we was just there. Nobody ever really, we didn’t really talk about it. It was this thing that happened. And nobody ever talks about producing your own work. But now, that kind of self producing stuff has become so integral to the building a career in theatre for a lot of people. So it’s interesting to see how the fringe has changed just in the time that I’ve been like looking at it.
Sara Meurling
Well, and one of the the the issues for me, and this is my soapbox moment, let me get up on is that first, we were flatlined in funding For so many years, right after the mid 80s, it became almost impossible for emerging companies who tended to be more exploratory and more culturally diverse, working outside the norm to get into the cycle, right. But a colleague of mine, has estimated that the post secondary institutions are graduating 1500 new artists every year. And how many new managers or producers Are they graduating? Some of the post secondary institutions have how to start your own company. Which means we have a proliferation of sub producing new company environments, when we could be working with the system as it exists, and part of that is, I don’t know that we do a terrific job and training. And I’ll say theatre people because I’m thinking, you know, I thought it was going to be an actor, then I was like, well, maybe other stage management, maybe I’ll do costume design. And then I discovered as a control freak, that was, although I have I did write a play, which sold out in a few fringe trends and but we really are missing a next generation. Theatre managers and theatre producers think there’s the producers who know how to get a show up in a fringe, or renting a small venue or engaging in a storefront or even one of the back spaces. But when it comes to creating a sustainable company structure, that can actually then move through the process of evolution to especially now there’s more money to employing their arts workers who are not actors, you know, to providing a living wage to adequately contracting to training getting boards of directors to understand how we just we have not really created a strength
Phil Rickaby
is that I think, is that a failing of the of the institutions that are there that are graduating so many classes because they aren’t really if you look at the theatre schools, there aren’t arts like there aren’t producing streams there aren’t when that kind of education does not seem to exist.
Sara Meurling
Well, there’s arts administration programmes, you know, Humber centennial. Grant MacEwan used to have one I don’t know if they haven’t any more, which are geared as as post grad postgraduate certificate programmes, which presupposes that someone is going to have a study. I mean, I, I jokingly say, I never heard of anyone who graduated high school. I’m going to be an arts administrator.
Phil Rickaby
No, of course.
Sara Meurling
Although I did just actually meet a couple. So now I have take that back. But I think the drive to work in theatre is a is a very specific drive. And if that the opportunity to become a producer was it was a stream outside of performance production? If you did that, I think there would be students that are coming into that first year. What do they call them? Oh, the one where you do everything? And when you’re the first year syllabus?
Phil Rickaby
Yeah, no, I don’t remember what it’s called. But I know, I know what you’re referring to survey corps. Yes,
Sara Meurling
the first year survey, it would be great. If they really was a this is what producers can do. This is what theatre managers can do. And I think it is, it isn’t a lack. It’s something that sort of on my agenda to continue to push forward. Because we’re gonna have a big gap pretty soon.
Phil Rickaby
Yeah. Yeah, I think so. There’s a lot of people who are learning how to produce on their feet, which is not necessarily the best way to do it. And to go from producing fringe to producing like full theatre, like a season or even just even like granting opportunity, like that sort of thing. That is hard to learn on your feet without a lot of trial and error. And that’s a really expensive trial and error if you’re like trying to produce that way.
Sara Meurling
When mentorship and internship programmes. I mean, you know, once upon a time 30 years ago, what you know, when I started there, there were more interest there was first there were fewer companies and there was more internships, because it was pre friend actually. And were the Edmonton fringe had started but Toronto hadn’t left. Right. And, and so in general, you graduated theatre school, you got a job in front of house or in the office, we worked box office, or you had a day job. And you you began to pick up fringe producing on the side if you were fortunate. You secured an internship and got to work in a company where you could acquire the skills. And that that was how none of us had any formal training. And that is how we became a theatre managers. No, my generation is Nancy Webster was she was in my class. So she’s always the one I remember. But I mean, we so we sort of went through that generation, we had mentors who stayed with us throughout. And now what you see is that there’s actually many emerging young producers, really talented administrators, who could be amazing, are actually stuck, because there’s no way for them to get that,
Phil Rickaby
right. They can’t get that push to become more proficient in what they’re That’s right.
Sara Meurling
Yeah. And, and so that, I think, is something we have to look at in a big way and start having those conversations, in the same way that there is actually no formal training programme for an artistic director.
Phil Rickaby
That’s very true. That’s very true. You I think, just like with producing, the only way that you learn how to be an artistic director is for somebody to put you in that role and say, What’s your season?
Sara Meurling
Well, and you know, and you start, you know, you are, you work within a theatre in the box office, you apply to another theatre, maybe you’ve written a play, maybe you’ve directed a couple of shows in a fringe. And then maybe you get an associate artists, maybe you get a theatre Ontario professional theatre training programme. I know Ontario better than Yes, because I went through my professional life here. But and then you move into Associate Artistic directorship getting a director on the show, having a relationship and a reputation and then moving up. And in fact, we see that across the country. Yeah.
Phil Rickaby
Yeah. I’m not even sure like, because the, I think that I know, there’s a lot of people that I can think of who are in that position of being quite almost at a loss for because it is actually hard to get into a fringe, right? Because it’s the luck of the draw. But if you get in then great. But if you don’t, then you’re like, how do I produce this thing? Because fringe is at a certain level that’s affordable for the independent artist, and then, but how do you go beyond that? If you have something that you want to do? I think there’s a lack of a knowledge that mentorship and that sort of thing would help with?
Sara Meurling
I think so too, and certainly for people who come through that. I think it also depends on whether or not you’ve produced a show when you were at school. Because sometimes, artists graduate and they’ve been part of departmental productions. But they’ve never actually produced a show, right? I went to York, which I was really fortunate there was tonnes of independent work on campus, in fact, got to the stage that by third year, I was having prostate. Are you still in the programme? Yeah, I’m just doing all sorts of other stuff. Yeah.
Phil Rickaby
I think it’s funny because I know that like all the programmes are different, because not every because I came out of the George Brown. There’s no, no, no, you are in it. And you’re doing that. So there isn’t a whole lot of opportunity. But again, when I was at George Brown, there wasn’t like nobody talks about independent producer producing your track was going to be audition, get the role audition, get the role audition, get the role. That was your going to be your life. And we never talked about self producing or producing your own work. And if we did, it was a sidebar for somebody who might not be a successful actor in that sense. Maybe you could do your own work.
Sara Meurling
You put that you poor thing. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It’s very funny because I realised halfway through first year university that as much as I like to be on stage, and mostly because I thought it was hilarious to cover lines for people who forgot, I was not a brilliant performer. I was a fine comedian, but that was about it. And, and, but did that did not mean I didn’t want to work in theatre. And that’s where I think looking at Theatre administrators or theatre managers or theatre producers, as failed performers or failed artists, is actually not to credit them with, they know theatre, they have an eye, they have an aesthetic bent. They have the capacity to work with directors and artistic directors to put together the seasons and the programmes. They’re not you know, I’ve once had somebody refer to me as a bureaucrat, and we’re not bureaucrats. That’s not what we do. And that’s why although ironically, I met like a meta theatre organisation because we don’t produce we just help people produce theatre. And I will say I do miss artists in my space. That’s a really I feel the lack. Yeah. But producing is a very real. One of the pillars. Yeah. The sector and it doesn’t get the credit. No. Mostly because it’s not glamorous, it’s not
Phil Rickaby
glamorous. And again, most people who end up producing their own work, never thought that that was going to be something that they would that they would do. A lot of people just sort of think I’m going to become an actor. And that’s about as much as they thought. And then when the reality sets in, a lot of times they don’t even realise that they’re producing. And so it just becomes trial and error and a little bit of a mess. And with that, does this pact have programmes for the independent predict the actor or the performer, producer?
Sara Meurling
We don’t we’re very much because of the way we evolved, are they much geared to the notion of organisation, in fact, our bylaws to be a member, you have to be an incorporated organisation? Because one of the things that we do is we say, it is for the professional community. So we have a membership committee that reviews and says, yep, look at those finances, they’ve produced two shows over that they didn’t have declared a season, they have a history of paying their artists. So it’s not We’re in no way an arbiter. But we basically say, Yeah, we agree that, right, these people have have come here. But that doesn’t mean that someone who was going to be an independent producer couldn’t actually seek support, as through our services, through relationships, like you don’t have to be a pack member to come to the conference. We are about to launch a new engagement programme for non producing theatre organisations, and also for independent professionals, which is really is kind of geared to producers, production managers, who are between gigs, but who want to remain engaged with the community. And we’re also working to support learning on the part of emerging producers and managers. We talk I’m, you know, I’m going to speak at Humber on Thursday about late the Oh, so exciting labour relations in Canadian theatre and human resources. And so we were we engage in sort of participation, we helped co present the India exchange with tapa, which was, grew out of what used to be the small theatre trade Forum, which is really learning experiences, we bring in granting officers to talk about writing grants, marketing people to talk about how to create a marketing campaign, all of that kind of thing. So we support it, but it’s not. It’s not at the forefront currently of our programmes.
Phil Rickaby
I’m curious about about that conference that you have, because I know that one of the things that I often have struggled with as somebody who, you know, performer, as a as a creator of theatre and those sorts of ways, is finding the community of of theatre people because it can be a bit of a solitary thing. You work by yourself, you work with a small group of people, but how do you grow outside of what can sometimes seem a clique ish work environment where you’re working with people that you know, they’re always looking for ways to to reach out what what if somebody was to go to the conference in Charlottetown? What kind of things would they would they see there?
Sara Meurling
So, every conference, we tried to develop a theme for every conference, and with the new strategic plan. Toronto was outside looking in was the notion of where was the centre of Canadian theatre. in Calgary, the theme sort of ethics centre was building bridges between organisations and we’re trying to come up with a good name for it, but working together regulated Charlottetown. Once upon a time, it was really just artistic directors in general managers of companies. We’ve expanded that we are encouraging student participation. In 2015 NTS sponsored 10 of their students to attend the conference in Toronto. Two of those students led a panel last year in Calgary, which was about building bridges between the emerging professional and the professional community. And we hope to see a lot of student participation in Charlottetown. I’m going to be speaking to the dean at Grenfell campus in Newfoundland, which has an 80 student performance, stagecraft programme, and we hope to see them there. So, if you’re a newcomer to Hopatcong, you can say I’m a first timer and we’ll pair you With a conference buddy, who will basically say, Okay, who do you want to meet? What do you want to know? We’ll go to these sessions. So we haven’t set the programming. So I’m going to use Calgary. So Calgary, we hadn’t we have a number of plenary speakers, we brought in Nikkei Jonah, and Hassan whose last name escapes me, who had been the sort of the internal critics at the Arts Council of England, who helped them develop their diversity programming, and sort of their equity programme throughout the council. So we have a number of plenary sessions like that we also did a session on holding territory, which was about the relationship. The indigenous peoples that host, if you were a host nation, what does it mean when people come onto your land, whether you’re settlers or from another nation. And so, so those plenary sessions are really sort of inspiring speeches, then we have a number of breakout sessions. So we did a piece on Kahoots newly released deaf artists toolkit so that people could be exposed to what what does that mean working with deaf artists in theatre? You know, how to have an inclusive signed performance. We did sessions on marketing in the age of social media, which is always a hearty conversation, because everybody does it and understands it differently. Yeah, there is, there are rooms, roundtables where there’s an artistic directors, roundtable and a general managers directors roundtable, which have now gotten really big. So we want to run it actually try and break them out a bit smaller, in which people just talk about the current things they’re dealing with. So someone can sit in a room of general managers, and everybody can talk about, you know, Castle, and why I’m wildly missing misunderstood, Canadian, original anti spam law, or how to motivate staff and a small company when you’ve had a bad year. You know, what do you do when a staff member starts to call in sick all the time, right? How do you work with your board of directors when they begin to, to meddle a little bit too much in what it is, you know, the professional leaders know how to do. And there were also Gosh, last year, we did open space technology, which is creating conversations that are based on people in the room. So everybody comes together and put subjects that they want to talk about on the table. Question none of which I can remember off top my head right now. We i i ended up in one. We just got a boat the awkward conversation which is was around the Canada 150 grants and the fact that it was actually sort of it felt predisposed to privilege, those organisations who had the capacity to develop and create and put together a grant application for a bold project. Because they already had, right so any equity seeking organisation couldn’t break through that. So that was sort of it. That was a quite a hearty conversation. There were conversations about what to do about burnout when you’re and we all have it. Well, yeah. So hearing from anyone in that room, there was you know, our board member was led by I think it was artists from Manitoba Theatre Projects, theatre projects, Manitoba. Me. And and so that group had some of the students and we’ve also begun to invite defined local partners who will sponsor the participation of emerging and culturally diverse organisations, because the registration is about $450. But it covers some meals, etc. But it can be impossible for an individual working within a small and funded organisation to to put that together with the travel money. So we’ve just that sponsorship is there. And so those conversations are bringing, I think fresh voices to the table. It is it’s, it’s a lot of fun. It’s a lot of talking, right, you start talking the day we get there. And then the airport on the way out is always hilarious, because everyone is sitting around and no one is talking anymore. We have four days of non stop talking about theatre. Yeah. And it’s very exciting. And plus this year, you know, I have never ovation.
Unknown Speaker
It’s gorgeous. It’s gorgeous.
Sara Meurling
I mean, it’s end of May can’t be any worse than the first conference I attended was in cow head at the end of May, in Newfoundland, where it snowed. So, it opportunities to to see the world and see colleagues again. And we build such great relationships. And people you can pick up the phone to at any time. And that’s the thing. I think that it really demystifies. Right? The notion that there’s some kind of inside and outside, right? Sometimes just people you’ve met
Phil Rickaby
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Do you find it there’s a lot more commerce? Or are you seeing a lot of conversation about where the audience is going? I know that a couple years ago, during NTSF. In Toronto, there was a conversation that Derek to have put together with a number of people, where they were talking about where is our audience going? And that was a general thing. And people sat for two hours, and we never really came up with an answer, but or the year the member has talked
Sara Meurling
about, we do talk about it, because there are different kinds of audiences. Right. Yeah. You know, the question is, where are older audiences, but what, you know what, they’re not actually coming to theatre anymore, you know, the original, sort of older way, middle class university, the the early boomers are now they’re not, they may not be coming to theatre as much these two subscription patterns are changing. I think we’ve actually really diversified our audiences. And there used to be in Toronto, for example, there used to be people who would subscribe to factory Terragen in Canadian state, or to Seoul pepper, National Ballet and Oregon, or, you know, and I think that the behaviours have changed. I don’t necessarily think they’ve gone away. But we have it particularly in the big urban centres. There’s such a multiplicity of option. I personally have always thought at certain point, people just shut down and say, I’m not making a decision. I’m gonna stay home in my pyjamas. Well, I
Phil Rickaby
mean, I was just thinking about that, because also at home, there’s TV, Netflix, there’s, there’s all those other things, DVDs, DVDs that you spent years collecting. Yeah. But there’s all these days. So I guess the exact question that everybody’s still asking is, how do you get people away from Netflix to come out? And TV, which is the unanswered?
Sara Meurling
Well, I think it depends. Yeah, certainly with some younger audiences. And I would call them the emerging audiences, right, mid 20s to 30s. Who have a choice to go to a concert, go to work, go to a club, go out for dinner, they’re actually looking very much for a whole evening experience, right? Their buying patterns have changed. You know, years ago, before the midsize theatres took credit cards to reserve tickets, people would just call me their name and number you’d be like, I’ll put you down for two. And then at a certain point for you, it happened. First time the Blue Jays were in the World Series. I was at a company and that was our pattern. And then we ended up with a show that had been basically sold out. Yeah, game two of the World Series. We were down to six people. Yeah. So they’re competing attentions, then there’s also so then he moved to the in credit cards. And then people were booking, you know, a couple of weeks, maybe a month out, or if they weren’t subscribers. And then, about six years ago, that pattern started to change. The lead time on the booking got shorter. Because people were like, I don’t know what I’m gonna want to do at the end of the week. They’ll make their decision on the Monday night. Yeah. Then it went to like maybe the Wednesday night. Yeah. And then all of a sudden, it flipped around again and move back to walk up. So people, young people, we’re not looking to NICU people, because then you you would see that people instead of booking a ticket online, which they had been the year before. They’ve been booking a ticket online the night before. Yeah. Then I would say two years ago turned into they were making the decision about what they were going to do at dinner. Yeah. So then you got
Phil Rickaby
walk in? Yeah. Yeah.
Sara Meurling
So the behaviours have changed. The question is how we respond to those change behaviours. And look at the rise in the storefront movement. Yeah. Whatever my concerns may be about the spaces. The reality is that for someone in a storefront theatre that holds 60 people, the 35 people that would make 100 seat house feel empty, it feels packed. It’s dynamic this spill out onto the sidewalk, and figuring out how we connect with the appropriate audience because there is no such thing as universal audience. Yeah, there’s an audience for that show at that time, in that space with those artists, which is what makes theatre exciting, because it’s very ephemeral. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Even though it could be an existing text. If you don’t see that night. Yeah, you will never be that again, you will never be that audience member again. And that show will never happen in that way. And so figuring out how to create that ongoing excitement about it, is what I think theatres are, I want to see struggling with, because theatre is nothing. It’s not a great innovator. It’s just that the, the environment we’re in has changed so rapidly. It’s change very rapidly. Yeah, in our practice has
Phil Rickaby
Well, I mean, and I don’t think anything’s ever changed quite this quickly before because of the innovations in technology going from, you know, for when we were talking about the importance of tweed seats that I never thought were really, I don’t think tweed seats ever really became a thing. People thought people needed to be able to tweet about the show while they were watching it. And then, you know, still that the whole question getting people away from
Sara Meurling
their social media, and now it’s not even Twitter. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Phil Rickaby
Yeah. Which is, which is its own thing, because you’re as it is, you don’t want people taking pictures during the show anyway, I mean, I’ve worked front of house, I know that oh, that’s the question. Right? Is is that deter, you know, they want to but you have to, you know, you have to find the you know, what does your audience want, as opposed to what what the production wants and things like that?
Sara Meurling
It? Well, here’s an interesting thing. So we make a pact. It’s actually a volunteer team negotiates the individual agreement. Right now we’re in 2016. Is year two of the current CTA? Yes, so we start negotiation pre negotiations in the fall of 2017. For the next Canadian theatre agreement. 2012 To 2015 theatre agreement, use the word lager talked about it, yes. In 2015 to 2018. The language was changed to social media. Yes. We now have to anticipate in discussions in the fall of 2017. And so I’ve put together several working group of marketing directors and people who’ve worked with this, what marketing and communications practice, we have to figure out if we can anticipate what that’s going to look in the next agreement, which will run Am I remembering this correctly? To 2021? terminates? 2018 Yes, the next one is 2018 1919 2020 21. We had to figure out what how we will need to communicate and promote the word in it, which is
Phil Rickaby
which is difficult considering how quickly it’s changing.
Sara Meurling
Absolutely, absolutely. When when the current CTA was negotiated, because the negotiation starts like eight months before it needs to be adopted. People companies were not using boosted Facebook posts, right? At least not very often. Right. And now it’s a regular thing. Yeah, but the question is, is that the same as a television advertisement? Hmm. Does that mean accurate? Agreement rates kick in for the $27 You spent to boost the post to 3000 people who said theatre and we’re in downtown Toronto? Yeah. So it there’s a huge evolution and I think in some ways there’s this still the best is word of mouth. Yeah. Whether it’s Facebook or Twitter. You have to look at who the who the person is. Yeah, yeah. who’s actually doing that tweet? Yep. Still
Phil Rickaby
gonna who they are what’s what’s the quality of their follower in that engagement? Because you can’t know you know, not everybody’s is the same.
Sara Meurling
No, and the other thing about it is you know, once upon a time theatres had love hate relationships with the critics. Right? You absolutely want to be critical to computer night because they love the show. You were gonna do fine. They know slept the show. So still, we pursued them to get there. Whether the house yeah. And I used to say, you know, there’s no guarantee now, I used to say two years ago, I used to say, there’s no guarantee that a good review will fill the house. But there is a guarantee that a bad review will kill them.
Phil Rickaby
Yes. Yeah, absolutely.
Sara Meurling
And yet, newspapers are dying. Yeah. We have the rise in bloggers. I had a, an artistic director call me and talking about the number of blogger reviewers who sought opening night tickets. And he was like, is there some kind of accreditation process for this? And I said, new but to be fair, we don’t have an accreditation process for our regular reviewers, either. I said, but there’s a certain you know, Caveat emptor, you gotta be aware of who you’re booking into, that knows read their previous stuff, check out their, their reviews, but I think you know, excited happy audiences are the best way or moved or incented. Or, really one of the best ways to grow raises but then you have the problem with we’ve only have a two week run, what on earth are you going to do? Well, that’s
Phil Rickaby
I mean, that’s the problem with with most reviews for one thing is if you only have a two week run, that review can only really do benefit. And it’s second the second half.
Sara Meurling
And try to start only has to review windows it looks like now yesterday on Sunday,
Phil Rickaby
and they and you know Toronto started reviewing stuff, Globe mails or fruit reviewing stuff, the Toronto Sun only review stuff in certain venues. So when you print media is not really your friend, there
Sara Meurling
were really reviews, maybe the question is how many of the Toronto Sun readership are actually well, there? Is
Phil Rickaby
that there is that there is that? But I mean, in terms of in terms of like, there, you don’t get theatre reviews on television. So that’s out. So you’re getting print media to get your online media. And really, I think what people trust more than that, is there. Is people on their Facebook feed? Yeah. And you look for those people who are connectors who are, you know, talking about shows that they’ve seen shows that they like, what what should they look for? Those are the trusted audiences that that can get people out. I think even more than then, you know, I mean, there’s some trusted reviewers that I really enjoy, or sources that I enjoy. But there’s only really a couple and there’s 1000s of theatre blogs.
Sara Meurling
And it’s also that theatres are expanding the way they have conversations about what’s happening. It’s a come, we’ll have a talk back. There’ll be a pre show talk. Later on, you can communicate, there’ll be a Twitter chat about about the shows. I don’t want to say the flailing but I think each theatre is trying to figure out the way it works best for their audience, for their particular set of people who come into their space, and or the space that they’ve run through. It will be so fabulous if there was like an eight plus B plus C equals Yeah, it was good work. Right? Yeah. But there isn’t.
Phil Rickaby
No. And there. Yeah, that’s the that’s the challenge is how do you get the word out? And that’s always been I think the challenge is, how do you get the word out, especially with limited budgets? Because there’s maybe only one place in this city that can afford to advertise on TV? And everybody else has to advertise on subways? Or or even just in like, by putting up posters and stuff. I
Sara Meurling
know I’ve seen the subway. That’s it. That’s actually a big vibe. Yeah. In order to make that have any value. Really? Oh, you’re talking?
Phil Rickaby
Absolutely. I remember. I remember doing the production years ago, and I purchased two posters in a in a subway station. Yeah, a young and bluer. But that that was like that was the biggest spend I did for that production. Yeah. And I would hate to see what it was. Now. It was not effective to do those two, two posters. You have to do a lot more than that.
Sara Meurling
Well, that answer the question is that’s what you do nice work being abroad based inside. Okay. I know that how many people do I need in that house? Yeah, right. I need 1400 People 100 See how to make the right. So where am I going to find those 1400 people, right? And then you you break it down into I know a certain number of them are going to this bar. I will go and ask that bar owner and ask those bartenders. If they will come see the show and they’ll be like can I put stuff out in the bar? You the best way to do it is to figure out who are going to be your ambassadors for your show in a particular niche market. It’s hilarious. One of the most successful marketing things I ever did was around the fringe show I co wrote with it. Friend, and this is 20 years ago, four years ago. Was it the blonde jokes wherever at the time, so it was tough on so we decided we would go after hair salons. And so we went into every hair salon and talk to the head stylists, and handed them cards been talked about blindness. And hairstylist needs something to talk about.
Phil Rickaby
Yes, yeah.
Sara Meurling
So they talked the show up. It was great. It worked really, really well. Yeah, I mean, and then we did all the other things, too, right. We’ve just heard we post carded. We did all of that. But I honestly think that finding a community who had the capacity to do the talking was the most effective. And that’s because you had people who were desperately looking for conversation. Yeah. Yeah. With people who sat in chairs in front of them for eight hours every day. Yeah. If only it was that easy.
Phil Rickaby
It only was that easy. Yeah. Yeah, we used to
Sara Meurling
the Toronto what it was the Toronto theatre lines, it’s now the Toronto LEDs for the Performing Arts used to once a year have. And it was back in the day when everybody had brochures, right, used to have a coffee and doughnuts with cab drivers. And so we would go to each of sometimes it’d be in a hotel, and to drive through and they could come and they could get a coffee and they could get a doughnut. And they could listen to a bit of a spiel and talk and then because cab drivers would then be in the city and someone would say I read a town what could what should I be doing? And in every city tutor or concierge associations, Toronto has a very powerful come tears Association. Invite the concierge as to previous get to know them, talk to them about what they’re looking to recommend. Because every single downtown hotel has somebody who says I want something that’s not usual.
Phil Rickaby
Yep. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Just with the a little bit of time that I have left. You’ve you’ve alluded a couple of times to your past to how you got to where you are, I would actually love to hear about first off what is it about theatre that drew you to YouTube when you were young? And what was your path to getting to be where you are now?
Sara Meurling
Okay, I’m gonna start like long. Yeah. Okay. So like, I was like one of the six year olds who put together variety shows with neighbourhood kids on the picnic, broke my own music, did my own stuff, you know, was in school plays from like, nine went to high school where it was, you know, oh, musicals all the time. Started a non musical company. But I grew up in Kingston, which had an incredibly high per capita amount of community theatre. Yeah, I started, you know, building sets and doing front of house when I was 13 for one of the local community theatres, dominant theatre, and slowly sort of I started doing that continue to perform that I was going to be a performer. Meanwhile, at 17 I was hosts managing the Grand Theatre, which is an 826 C Roadhouse applied to go to university so I had caught it right. Yeah, I had that theatre yo, yeah. never considered anything else did not want to grow up and go into film that was never heard of my thing. And I think it’s, you know, part of it is front of house and backstage work and, and the hush money, excitement and anticipation like that. That moment where it’s gonna happen, and you don’t know what’s going to happen because it’s live. Although, you know, what’s gonna happen? You don’t supposed to have Yeah. And when to York, of course, I want to be a performer, as I said, turned out there, guess what, but then I started working on I became a fixer and non departmental productions, I would take full costume design, and I was basically sort of a producer who would come in and resolve the issues with the pink ladies jackets for the industry, you know? Yeah. Because the stage manager and shrunk everything, you know, realised I couldn’t be a stage manager because I would get frustrated easily, right? Like, your costume is here on the rack, under the masking keep with your name of your character’s name. It’s not your name, but you know, you get the point. Which was not good and so I have a friend of mine was on a work programme at the Theatre Centre in box office. And this is the four, and I graduated University. I’ve only ever had one other job as a waitress in the restaurant was terrible, terrible waitress. And I’d also done host testing, but it’s basically all that kind of stuff. And so I went to this work programme and said, Tell you what, if you give me this job, I haven’t been out of school and out of work for 16 weeks, but if you give this to me, I won’t have to apply for welfare. So you might as well give it to me now. And so I started at the Theatre Centre. And when I left in 1992, I was the producer. It helped that it turned out I didn’t really embrace it until it was in my 40s that I am a control freak. I like to know how to do everything right. I like to know how to do everything well. And so yeah, I got an internship. I learned how to book keep and bake 30 column blue line, had to do it in pencil because I was always getting it wrong, whether it was a debit or a credit. I had some great mentors. Great Cynthia Grant, who was founding artistic director of Nightwood Claire Hopkinson who’s now at the Toronto Arts Council, Svetlana Zeilen, who was a director dramaturg and passed away a number of years ago. And yeah, I was really fortunate. I ran the Theatre Centre in the poor Alec’s lip and caught which is disappeared space now condos. Down on Queen Street now it’s like a swingers club across
Phil Rickaby
the swingers club moved out. So it’s like, but I remember that that’s at Legion, wasn’t it?
Sara Meurling
It was just proud of the Royal Canadian legion. We had the mainspace
Phil Rickaby
I remember I actually remember doing a summerworks performance in that space. And something was in the
Sara Meurling
first year of civil it
Phil Rickaby
was like second or fourth Yeah, first, maybe first or second year. And there was some kind of something going on upstairs from the Legion which was almost drowning out what we were doing yep
Sara Meurling
poker nights he used to have a fight with the president of Abuja over it was very funny extent one come to know Hey, and so then I got to kind of a council beat rent because they had only been at the Theatre Centre. And I did independent producing. And I worked with death weights and artist who is no pull it take a brand. I worked with all sorts of different companies company of science, which was Cynthia grants follow up company DNA Theatre, which was held on the toilet. And so did that for a long time. And then, I was general manager for the Ontario puppetry Association. And then went to the dance umbrella as almost, I’m telling you, there’s an entire generation of arts administrators in the city of Toronto all spent some period of time at the dance. And then I left theatre and ran an Apple computer dealership. Carbon computing for almost nine years, which was super fun. was, you know, when I went there, it was buy low, sell high. If you felt like it turn off the phones and play Quake. The owner used to take all the stuff out to see the next Star Wars movie. And we went from you know, five guys buy low sell high to 45 employees three location and took up board with that. But it’s all the same skills as running a theatre company.
Phil Rickaby
Do you remember what it was that that made you leave the theatre?
Sara Meurling
Ah, well, it was a couple of things. My parents have been elected for the second time. I was really tired. I had been working at that point marketing dance shows, which was heartbreaking. You know, artists, you know, choreographers would work for two years creating work and they would come to you and say, I have a show in six weeks that the winch a $1,500. Can you bring me an audience, right. When I got to work also good to work with Peggy Baker and Denise Fujiwara and Bill James. That was quite amazing. But it was tired. I’ve had I just had my second child, dance and brother was restructuring and I was really tired. I was exhausted. I just thought I can’t do this anymore. So I stayed on the board. I was on the board of theatre Gargantua was that entire time um I didn’t see a lot of theatre. It was almost a self imposed exile. Right? And then
Phil Rickaby
I came back. What was it that brought you back in?
Sara Meurling
I love carbon. It was like I had done my time, there was nothing more for me to build, there were no more problems for me to solve. Apple was selling direct and so gutting the market that we had built. And I considered staying in technology. But it’s exhausting. You work 50 or 60 hour weeks running a multimillion dollar company, you’re recruiting somebody else as well. If I’m going to work 50 or 60 hours a week I might as well be doing in something. So I came back to theatre and came back with a vengeance. Love it. And now so I was at the young centre. I moved from the young centre to factory and was there during 2009 to 2014 during the big transition and then this document man I thought, huh, I would like to work with companies who I know we’re all experiencing the same thing. flatline government grants audience attrition changing patterns and I thought I want to make change at a bigger level.
Phil Rickaby
Thank you so much. There’s been a lot of fun we’re we’re basically at an hour and I’ve really enjoyed talking with you. Thank you so much.
Sara Meurling
Well thank you so much.