Suzanne's Mom's Blog

Photo: Peter J. Thompson/National Post/File
The Royal George Theatre in Niagara-On-The-Lake, Canada, is home to the annual George Bernard Shaw Festival. The National Post reported in July, “Shaw’s are among the only actors, musicians, and theatre workers in the world who still have jobs.”

When Suzanne was a toddler and John about 6, we made the pilgrimage from our home near Rochester, New York, to the famed Shaw Festival at Niagara-on-the-Lake. Curiously, although it’s a June event, I think of the festival every year in December when I hang Christmas tree ornaments that I bought in Niagara-on-the-Lake.

The main focus of the festival is the oeuvre of playwright George Bernard Shaw, but there are other offerings. We took turns babysitting, and I went to see the British concert comedienne Anna Russell (1911-2006), always hilarious.

But I digress. Today’s post is about the Shaw Festival, but not about the performances.

Calum Marsh writes at Canada’s National Post, “About three-and-a-half years ago, Tim Jennings, the executive director and CEO of the Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, decided to undertake some risk analysis alongside his CFO. He looked at potential problem areas, and at concerns that might arise throughout the course of an ordinary season of theatre, and came to a shrewd conclusion: The festival should take out an insurance policy against the threat of a pandemic.

“The policy covered the interruption of planned performances by communicable disease. As a consequence of that remarkable foresight, the Shaw Festival has been able to do the basically impossible …

In an industry that has been universally devastated, the festival has kept its more than 500 employees on the payroll full-time.

“Almost everyone in the field of arts and entertainment has been out of work since the beginning of the lockdown, when live performances became a logistical impossibility. But thanks to the coverage, Shaw’s are among the only actors, musicians, and theatre workers in the world who still have jobs. …

“Given how few people were prepared for such an incredible turn of events — and how many businesses, including major corporations, failed to anticipate such a contingency — the Shaw’s insurance policy doesn’t look merely fortuitous. It looks downright prophetic. Jennings insists he is no Nostradamus. He was simply planning ahead.

‘People keep telling me it was genius,’ Jennings says, reflecting on this extraordinary stroke of luck. ‘It wasn’t actually genius. It wasn’t about this pandemic at all — it was about communicable disease.’

“In his time working in theatre Jennings has seen a minor stomach bug waylay productions on countless occasions. Shaw employs a rotating repertory ensemble; if one of his actors got the flu, ten of them could, and that might stall a show. ‘We took it out for the whole season, thinking that if six actors got ill and we had to shut down for two weeks, we might lose two million bucks,’ he explains. ‘But the policy also very clearly covered a pandemic. That was really a useful piece of good fortune.’

“No insurance policy is perfect, of course, and the Shaw Festival, Jennings points out, is ‘still running into money issues, as one would expect.’ But it is nevertheless the only organization of its kind to have managed to keep so many people employed and working when the actual work they do isn’t feasible.

“The festival has also taken advantage of the CEWS [Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy] to offset the cost of paying its people — including the many actors and musicians who aren’t technically eligible, as independent contractors, thanks to another canny move. ‘Our actors rehearsed on Zoom from March through May, waiting to get back on stage,’ he says. ‘When it became clear that it wasn’t going to happen, we pivoted.’

“Jennings terminated their contracts, instead hiring them on as employees, under the title Education and Community Outreach Specialists.

“[They] made calls to donors, taught choreography to students over Zoom, and performed for the ill in hospice. ‘I was able to rehire all of the artists, actors, and musicians, plus about ten more. All of these artists are able to get back to work.’ ”

Such a nice story! Read more here.

Hat tip: ArtsJournal.com