Discover the inspiring journey of the founder of Bygone Theatre and The Bridge, two innovative initiatives making waves in Toronto’s artistic community. In this interview, we delve into their motivations for creating affordable spaces for artists, the challenges they’ve faced along the way, and their hopes for the future of the arts scene in Toronto and beyond. Join us as we explore their vision for fostering creativity, supporting emerging talent, and contributing to the cultural fabric of the city.
Can you tell us about your personal journey that led you to establish Bygone Theatre and The Bridge?
I had always been interested in theatre, or at least creative things. I was that weird little kid writing scripts and “directing” my friends in backyard shows when I was 5. Where I grew up there weren’t a lot of opportunities to get involved in the arts, so when I moved to Toronto in 2008 to go to university, I took advantage of all the campus theatre groups and joined as many as possible. While it was fun and gave me some good experiences, I found myself frustrated with the organization (or lack thereof) of some of the productions, so when I was 24 I decided to start my own company: Bygone Theatre.
What inspired you to create a mixed-use art space like The Bridge, particularly with a focus on affordability for artists?
After running Bygone for about a decade, we decided it was time to take the plunge and get our charitable status. Our tenth season was our first as a charity, and we went from doing an average of one show a year, plus maybe a couple one-night-only events, to having three mainstage productions and a bunch of educational programming. This was also our first season back after a hiatus due to the pandemic, and a lot of the local theatre community had changed. Lots of companies had closed, or majorly scaled back. A lot of the lower-cost rehearsal spaces were gone. For years we had talked about having our own space one day, but for the first time we were faced with a couple big changes that made that potentially possible: the fact that our charitable status meant we could provide tax receipts and be eligible for more funding, and the fact that Toronto was facing a huge surplus of unused office space, as so many companies had switched to remote working models. There is literally millions of square feet of unused office space in our city, and something that we learned was that, that’s done on purpose. Companies don’t want to lower their rent because it “lowers” the value of their property, so instead of adjusting their prices to match the new demand, many companies were just sitting on empty, perfectly usable office space, waiting and hoping things would change. In a time when there are so few spaces for artists, and money is so tight, this felt especially ridiculous to me. Luckily, we managed to find a company that saw the value in giving us a lower-priced and more flexible rental, and we hope that if we can show success with this model, more companies will follow suit.
What were some of the biggest challenges you faced when starting and running Bygone Theatre as a registered charity?
For sure our biggest challenge is a lack of resources. For most of last season, and since we moved into The Bridge in August 2023, I have been “working” full time for Bygone without any sort of regular pay or salary. 90% of the work I do is volunteer. I’ve tried to pick up odd jobs here and there to make ends meet, but realistically, if I get a full-time, regular job, I won’t have time to manage things here, and it will fall apart. You often hear about people having to make sacrifices when they start a company, and how you don’t really turn a profit the first few years. The problem is, when you’re running a non-profit, you’ll never make one! This is a charity, and I run it because I feel it’s important, but the cost of living in the city is getting insane. When you’re worrying about not just paying your own rent, but the rent for a large, mixed-use arts space, it can get more than a little stressful. That said, what is big money to me and my little company, and to fellow artists, is really not much to the large companies and wealthy benefactors that often help support these sort of endeavours. If we can raise $150,000 that will cover the rent for the rest of our lease. If we can raise double that it’ll also cover our overhead, free programming for artists, and salaries for myself and another few people to run things. I’ve seen companies that have raised millions of dollars, so the idea of raising $300,000 is not unheard of, but we are on a time crunch, and doing that while managing the day-to-day is challenging.
How do you see The Bridge addressing the affordability crisis for artists in Toronto?
Something that has always bothered me with the term “affordability” is that it seems to often be conflated with “below market value”. Toronto is nowhere near affordable. Big cities have always been expensive, but the last few years housing has gone up at such a rate that even two-income households are struggling to make rent in shoebox sized apartments. You really need to make upwards of $60,000/yr to have a hope of living here, and artists tend to be much closer to the $30,000/yr mark. They have to face problems like unreliable income (due to gig work), a lack of benefits, unusual work schedules – if you’re trying to make your own work and need a physical space to do that on top of everything, it can really feel impossible. Minimum wage here is only about $16/hr. Many of us are earning that, either through a “Joe job” like serving that helps pay the bills, or as what our earnings average out to over a year with inconsistent income. Yet, many of the “affordable” spaces I see are $25/hr and up. I do not believe you can call anything affordable and have it cost more an hour than what the lowest paid workers earn. In what world can someone spend more on an empty room to practise their craft than they make an hour doing that work? It’s insane to me. But many of these spaces are put together by people who are so far from this level of poverty that, they’re looking at the average costs and saying, well, it’s 50% less than market rate, how is that not affordable? And in an ideal world, yeah, it would be. But I think it’s time the people who need that access get to actually be heard, and show how big this gap is, and how fast it’s widening. It’s time we start having the big decisions made by people who actually have that lived experience. And while I’d love to see that in all aspects of life, here, in the tiny Toronto theatre community, this is a little way we can help start to do that. So our rental rates start at $10/hr, and if we can meet our funding goals, all rentals will be $10/hr. When we hire staff to run a bar, or manage the space for external events, they are paid $25-$30/hr. The sheer number of applications I have gotten for that really irregular work that we can offer shows how needed something like this really is.
Can you share any specific success stories or impactful moments that have occurred at Bygone Theatre or The Bridge?
Something Bygone has always prioritized doing is offering free training and hands-on experience to creatives looking to gain experience in a role. Theatre school can be super expensive, and I don’t think it’s necessary. Almost all that I learned, I learned through doing. That said, not everyone has the ability to take the financial risk to try things on their own – frankly, if I was trying to start this up today, with what the cost of living is now, I don’t think I could. So we’ve often had students or emerging artists come on to productions and be given a role like stage manager, even if they’ve never done it before. Rather than having them shadow me, I act as their shadow. I give them the basic knowledge they need to get things started, and stand back and let them try things, and teach as they go. I think it’s been really successful. We’ve had several people who went on to get their first professional gigs after working with us, and I think part of that is because a lot of people don’t want to be someone’s “first time”. But I love it. I like helping people discover things and it’s really rewarding to see their confidence grow and to know you’ve helped somebody move towards their goals or dreams. The same goes for some of the workshops we’ve run. I hesitated to run any for so long because I didn’t feel “qualified”, and then I started seeing some of the people who ran some and thought, well, I have at least as much experience as them, why not? And so I’ve run free directing, producing, design workshops, that sort of thing, and I’m always really blunt. I’ll be honest about the costs of things, about how hard it is to get an audience, all the stuff that seems to be a bit of an open secret. I’ve had a lot of people reach out to say how helpful it’s been knowing they aren’t the only ones who are struggling, which is great, because really I think we all are. I don’t know if its fear or pride or what that make people not want to admit that, but we’re a community, and a small one, and one that needs support from our government, and larger organizations and our community at large just to survive, let alone thrive. So I think we could all do with being a little more open and honest about the state of things right now.
What advice would you give to aspiring artists or entrepreneurs looking to make a difference in their communities through creative endeavors?
The main advice I give any artist I come across is to be open and honest in all your communications. There’s very little money in the arts. So if you’re trying to start something yourself and you’re not independently wealthy, or have a family member who is, you’re going to have to ask for some help. And that’s fine. I think we all need to be transparent about what we can offer and what we need. Pretending that working for you for free is going to give someone some great “exposure” or “experience” is insulting and untrue, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t times when it’s ok to work for free or to ask someone to. I always outline what I have, what I don’t have and why, and what I can give. People don’t go into the arts to get rich (at least not here!) and so finding someone who will work with you because they are passionate about the work, or the community, that really is possible. And then when you make those connections, and get those favours – remember them. Remember the people who helped you when you had nothing to give, and remember anyone who’s had a positive impact, even if they were paid really well for their work. Show your thanks. Recommend them for things. Go back to them first when you’re in a better spot and can offer more. We’ve worked with some great artists who, the first time we collaborated, were given something like a $200 honorarium, and now we regularly engage them under union contracts. It’s not just a good way to support your community and your peers, it also shows people that you are committed to improving, so when you ask the next person for help, they’ll see you do make an effort to return that favour.
How do you balance the artistic vision of Bygone Theatre and The Bridge with the practical aspects of running a business and managing finances?
I’m really good with doing things on the cheap. Having worked in the arts for so long, I’m used to not having a regular income, and I’ve always been thrifty. If I actually counted up how much time I spent doing cost saving things, maybe it wouldn’t seem like such a good deal, but I like digging through antique stores and bidding in auctions, so it doesn’t really feel like work most of the time. When it comes to things like design for a show, I’m basically always on the look-out for something that we could use. I have a huge collection of antiques that I’ve gotten over the years, always for way less than you’d pay retail, and I like to make and re-work things. Generally, the biggest costs we have to face are connected to venues – for rehearsals but especially performance. That’s another reason why we wanted to have a space like The Bridge. While it’s not the traditional theatre I dream of having one day, it does provide a space for artists that is inexpensive enough they can prioritize other budget lines, like paying themselves. It’s my hope that we can get some funding support and push that a lot further. I’d love to see more artists using the space as somewhere they can try out new work without having to worry about making back enough in ticket sales to pay their rent. Now, when it comes to things like the costs of running The Bridge, that’s definitely harder. Come June, our monthly expenses are going to go way up, so there’s a few of us that have been trying hard to get grant funding or independent donors to keep our doors open. I work full time for no pay. Ultimately, it’s not sustainable. But I feel like if we can reach the right audience, the right person, someone with the resources to help will see the potential this space has, and will step up. You can’t ask someone to give without showing you’re giving too. Right now I’m giving my all, and we’ve got tenants and volunteers and supporters who have all helped by donating their time and talents to help get this thing going. Still, if it’s going to succeed, we’ll need financial support. Otherwise it will go back to being another empty, unused space, while the community loses yet another place for the arts.
What steps do you think need to be taken on a larger scale to address the affordability crisis in the arts community in Toronto and beyond?
There needs to be a fundamental shift in the way the people making decisions think about the arts. I think too often artists are looked at as not providing anything of value – oh, well you chose to become an artist, what did you expect? There’s this weird romanticized idea of “the starving artist”, and it’s really bizarre. First off, if you think of a lot of the great artists in history, maybe at one point they were “starving”, but they were subsisting entirely off their work. They were living cheaply because they were making a living only off painting, or acting – nowadays you can’t survive at all. Most artists I know have a full time job and try to create on top of that, and we’re never going to have the same quality of creation if the time can’t be put into it. Then there’s the twisted fact that the arts, or “entertainment”, is a multi-billion dollar industry. So it’s not like there isn’t a demand. But for some reason, the people at the very top, who are rarely ever artists, are making a fortune off things like television shows, or art sales, while those who are making them struggle to get by. I’d love to see a UBI for artists, but I don’t think it will happen. Failing that, we need our government, or the people and corporations in our country with the greatest funds to stop hoarding them and start putting them into things that create value even if they don’t create profit. Human beings have told stories and made art since we first became human, and there are so many arguments for why it is essential for the happiness and wellbeing of our society. But it’s not fair to continue to put the onus entirely on the artists. You can’t expect others to suffer and barely survive just to create things to bring entertainment or happiness to the ones at the top. Imagine a world with no music, no tv or movies. No fashion design, no photography, no books, no architecture – that’s a world without artists. We need to recognize it’s something worth supporting.
In what ways do you see Bygone Theatre and The Bridge contributing to the cultural fabric of Toronto?
With the way granting works in Canada, a lot of what you see from larger institutions is a call out for people from a certain group, a certain culture or ethnicity or demographic. It’s important that we have diversity in the arts (as diversity is important in everything) and I understand this is done to try to balance the scales and give more space to those who historically have not had it, but I think an unfortunate side effect of this is that it’s forcing people to focus on what makes them “different”. People are really concerned about what groups they belong to, and how they should publicly identify, and for some that can be a really difficult thing to come to terms with. Asking if you are “enough” of something to fit into that group. Personally, in my limited experience, I’ve found that if you make available something that is accessible to people of all different backgrounds, people of all different backgrounds will come. It’s my hope that we can provide a space that is welcoming and affordable to artists who want to create all types of art, with all types of resources, and coming from all types of backgrounds. I don’t want to be known as a company that supports any particular group other than one that supports “artists”. We’re continuing to reach out to groups we haven’t worked with much before to ask what we should offer to make things feel welcoming for them, and I hope that people will feel comfortable just reaching out themselves if there’s something they want or need. I would love if we could contribute to the cultural fabric of the city by becoming somewhere you can truly see a diverse group of people all bringing their different skills and experiences together, because that can only help us all to strengthen and grow. It maybe sounds a little cheesy, and I’m certainly not an expert in how to make that happen, but my hope is that we can sort of open our doors and say, you’re welcome here, come join us, and we’ll take it from there.
Looking towards the future, what are your hopes and goals for Bygone Theatre and The Bridge?
My goal for Bygone is to be able to pay our artists fair wages for their work, and to offer free training and opportunities to those who want to learn. That’s it. When I started this over a decade ago I told myself I’d do it for as long as I could afford to, and while it’s been a bit touch and go, I’ve managed to fit in enough other things around it to keep things moving and growing. I never intended to turn it into a full-time job for myself, but now with the addition of The Bridge, there’s really no way to keep it as just an evening and weekend sort of thing. So on a really base level my goals are to secure funding so we can continue to do what we’re doing, and to try to expand it to include more artists. I really want us to be the place you can go when you want to try something out, or when you’re on a tight budget. On a bit more abstract scale I hope we can be something that is recognized and respected in the community, not just for the work we do but the way we do it. There are lots of awful stories of wonderful shows being made by terrible people, and I don’t understand why we tolerate that as a community. While I’d love to hear someone liked something I did creatively, it’s just as, if not more, important to me to hear that someone felt respected and supported, and enjoyed working with us. I’ve never liked cliques, and I don’t want to become another theatre company that only looks inward. I want to be known as somewhere that is approachable, somewhere that doesn’t just promote from within or never hold open calls. I want us to be a stepping stone in people’s creative journeys, and it would be great if we were one they came back to now and again.
You can find more information here:
www.bygonetheatre.com and
www.379thebridge.com
