Oh, for crying out LOUD!

Okay. Here's the thing. If you want to produce theatre, produce theatre. Don't whine about losing a space, or lack of money, or anything.

When I was in Vancouver working as the Business Mgr/Administrative Associate with Theatre M.O.M. (Theatre Modular Organizational Management Society), I had over 80 small and mid-size theatre clients. They ALL, without exception, managed to find space in which to produce. Some worked out of theatres, some in a tent in a park, others out of the basement of a pub or back workspace of a bookshop. Each and every one of them received funding - federal, provincial, municipal and gaming.

What matters is the work.

In the town that I live in, there are many such spaces. In fact, Blue Peanut is producing in one right now - an Art Gallery. Now, at the risk of pissing some people off, I have some things to say. There is an AD in town that has just chosen to cancel his entire season (07/08) because the venue that he has been working out of (which, in my opinion should have been condemned long ago for health and safety reasons) has been sold and requires much work before it can be used again. I would really like to see the minutes of the General Meeting during which this decision was made. Not really though. My point? Stop whining and do something about it. Instead of using your energies to rant in the local newspaper, over e-mails and on the backs of programs, Create Space. There's no one to fight here. We, as the arts community need to ALL come together to make space happen, or look at other options instead of acting singularly. I would refer anyone listening to See 7, the brainchild of Theatre M.O.M. Many years ago it started out as a marketing initiative for 7 companies that couldn't afford either space or marketing individually. It grew. Audiences grew. It incorporated on its own and still continues to grow, attracting both new audiences and producing companies. As theatre professionals, we can't afford to ignore one another, but must instead work together.

I propose AARTS Nanaimo. It's an initiative of Blue Peanut that I've been working on for a year or so now. The idea is to form a collective of arts professionals and/or people that WANT to be in the arts. Collective admin, collective marketing, etc. - and I'm willing to help ANYONE that needs administrative advices. I'm also working on setting up something akin to Vancouver's Alliance for Arts and Culture, but for Vancouver Island.

If there's anyone out there interested in learning Arts Admin and increasing their individual effectiveness and/or apprenticing, let me know. I'm here and willing to help.