News and notes to start the month of June

The month of June is not even a week old and I already have several arts-related items that have crossed my desk to share with you today.  Like last week there is a mix of good and bad news, so again like last week lets go from the bad news to the good news...

The worst news of the week and for many in a very long time came earlier in the week with the news Oh Canada Eh! dinner theatre in Niagara Falls was closing for good.  The dinner theatre founded by local travel agent Ross Robinson and local theatre performer Jim Cooper had been operating in the Falls since 1994, so the upcoming season would have been their 27th.

The reason for the closure?  COVID-19 of course.  Oh Canada Eh! thrived on the tourist trade along with a loyal local base, but with both of those drying up in March due to the pandemic it was perhaps inevitable the theatre company would have a tough go of it going forward.

With much of the tourist traffic coming during the summer months and no idea when that will return, plus the seating arrangements used in the Lundy's Lane log cabin they call home it was not going to be easy for the company to weather this latest storm.

They survived SARS and 9/11 but this pandemic has been devastating to the company.  The flood of requests for refunds for cancelled performances was just too much for them, and a benefit performance they staged in May to help keep the company afloat was simply not enough.  There was even a recent GoFundMe campaign to save the company, and now those funds will be returned to donors.

There will be eight full time employees affected by the closure, plus about 40 or so cast members and musicians.  Almost all were local and every single one of them was extremely talented.

Oh Canada Eh! began at the now-defunct Pyramid Place and moved into the present custom-built log cabin in 1999.  That building will now be put up for sale.

Will another similar dinner theatre rise from the ashes to take its place?  We can only hope, as Oh Canada Eh! consistently provided exceptional quality for the money year in and year out.  The precedent will be hard to match but the present management team is not ruling it out.

Thanks for the memories, Oh Canada Eh!, and know you will be missed.

In other news, the popular local In The Soil arts festival has shelved even their online programs for the time being.  The traditional festival was to be held this weekend throughout the downtown core and that had to be changed to accommodate the pandemic closures, so a summer-long online festival was devised and launched in May to replace it.

But in a statement released this week by Suitcase in Point Artistic Director Deanna Jones, they decided to pause the festival for now in light of the current racial unrest going on across North America right now.  Jones wrote:  "We can't justify moving along, business as usual, while acknowledging what is happening in city after city."

The statement adds:  "We stand in solidarity with all black creatives, artists and people in our community and beyond."  As a show of support they have decided to donate 50% of all contributions received through the online festival to the Niagara Region Anti-Racism Association.

The company will also be participating in a peaceful demonstration being organized for later today in Niagara Falls.

When the online festival is back up and running again I'll update you on the details in this space of course.

Meantime The Norm Foster Theatre Festival, operating at the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre downtown during the summer months, made a happier announcement this week.  Of course, they had to cancel the entire summer season for this year earlier due to the current pandemic.  But a familiar face is returning to the Festival to help guide the company through the effects of COVID-19.

The board of directors announced the return of founder Emily Oriold as incoming Artistic Producer for the Foster Festival.  Emily was Founding Executive Director for four years after the Festival began in 2015.

Emily, an actor in her own right, was part of the World Premiere cast of Alison Lawrence's Too Close to Home at Theatre Orangeville this past March until it, too, closed due to COVID-19.

Oriold will play a critical role in the coming months working alongside well-known Arts Management Consultant Candace Turner-Smith.

Welcome back, Emily Oriold!

And finally this week, The Elora Festival announced the release of the new CD by The Elora Singers, This Love Between Us, which launched officially yesterday.  It will be an unorthodox launch of course due to COVID, but excerpts from the recording will be presented for one week now on the Singers' YouTube channel.  There you'll also find interviews with the two featured composers on the disc along with the Festival's Artistic Director.

The new disc is available on Spotify and iTunes and a CD copy can be ordered directly from the group by sending a request via email at info@elorasingers.ca.  They are also shipping free in the month of June, by the way.

I'll try to get a copy of the new disc myself to help support the Singers and Festival and write about it here in the near future.

That's it for this week; have a good week, keep well and do the best you can to make your community a better place in which to live.

Take care!

June 6th, 2020.