Im glad you made this comment, because it gives me the opportunity to make this point:

Unlike the purpose of a corporation, whose purpose is to create a profit, the purpose of a theatre company is to create great art. In the corporate world, you are right, “deals go south”. No hard feelings, lets move on. In the art making world, when a production falls apart because a BOARD MEMBER (not the Artistic Director) decides to cancel a show weeks from opening for IDEOLOGICAL reasons, that’s called abandoning your community, your mandate, and the artists whose stories you are meant to serve.

This is a very good example of what happens when business people have inappropriate power and control of an artistic organization. A board is there to raise money and ensure financial stability of the organization. Curating the season is NOWHERE on their list of responsibilities. If they want to do that they should start their own theatre company. Period. End of story.

I love my board, but if they told me what to program, there would be an immediate conversation about which of us is resigning, because you cannot function as an artistic director with integrity or vision with that kind of oversight.

To speak to your other point, come on dude, putting on a play that has already been nominated for a GG and has already played Winnipeg is neither “Groundbreaking or Challenging”. (Other than that putting on any theatre is quite challenging)

By the way, the play they replaced it with is about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and was nominated for the Governor General’s award. I think I would consider that to be “Groundbreaking and Challenging.”

From the Website of Harold Green Jewish Theatre

Some of our mid-range goals…

* To deepen students understanding of themselves and the world through the medium of Jewish theatre. * To help develop a knowledgeable, perceptive new audience for Jewish theatre and for the arts in general. * To stimulate participants’ imagination, creativity, and critical thinking skills through active engagement with challenging new Jewish theatre works. * To improve the ability of classroom teachers to teach the arts and to incorporate Jewish arts education into the curriculum.

Supporting New Jewish Plays The untold story is the one that needs to be heard. Through readings, workshops and commissions it is our goal to foster the writers of the Jewish community. Our goal is to one day have a vibrant playwright in our residency program and to contribute regularly to the Toronto Jewish canon of plays.

Indeed!

Laurence

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Certainly that isn’t clear from the page about the festival on the HGJTC website which states, “Our primary goal is to further the development of pieces from In the Beginning and potentially move them forward to a full Mainstage production at the Harold Green Jewish Theater Company.”

Also good to note on a separate unrelated topic that again it is indie unaffiliated artists that are the energy and motivation behind creating new work.

I just wanted to clarify that the Jewish Playwrights Festival is an initiative that began outside of the HGJTC by a fantastic local Jewish actor. She brought it to the theatre company in hopes of helping them find a way to be relevant to Jewish artists in Toronto. She is looking for new and innovative work, and has been trying to fill a void that the company was not filling on their own.

But okay fine, I’m not an Orthodox Jew, so maybe I have a different perspective on these matters. The point is – the real damage here is about WHEN the funds got pulled. If you don’t want to support this work, don’t – go do other incredibly boring things work that ask no questions – but don’t psyche artists out by saying yes and then back out when they don’t have time to raise the resources they need to succeed. That is mean and frankly sabotaging someone else’s work.

I can’t just stop shaking my head at the seemingly terrible decision by HGJTC to pull the funding. God forbid anyone question anything, ever. sigh.