Frontier Thespian It's almost three years you've been here now.What most surprised you about the job once you got started here?

Dennis Garnhum How much I would enjoy all aspects of the job. What I've discovered is that all of it is an artistic expression. So whether I'm hiring an actor, rehearsing a play, figuring out a budget, working on a marketing campaign, to me it's all about the art. I really enjoy getting my hands in everything. I thought I would, but I really do enjoy the diversity that comes with the job. I think a lot of people wouldn't really enjoy the job- you have to have a certain kind of brain for it. But there's so many different things I get to do- I love the balance. And I get to pick the plays and I get to direct. I mean, that's pretty sweet. There's no, no matter what we say, "for the good of all", it's a personal choice, I get to pick the plays. And I know I pick plays that people like, and that's great, but there is still a joy about being able to chart your own course.

Frontier Thespian I read the article in the Globe and Mail recently about Calgary Culture, and it sort of semi-quoted you as saying the situation here in Calgary has improved over the last three years. What improvements have you seen, or was that an accurate reflection of what you'd said to them?

Dennis Garnhum It's a tricky thing talking about that article because the context was relative. And people are...what's the simple answer for you? I said to Marsha Liederman, the Globe writer, very clearly that it's exciting to see what is happening and I said to her it's in no way because I've arrived. But I don't know if that comes through clearly. I worry that the article looks like "I've arrived and now things are moving along." I said to her, "No, no, no, things have always been moving along."

It's simple. When there's money problems in the city, the art is going to struggle. So that's really what that comment was about. I'm seeing, even from the early days of my arrival, I'm just quite impressed by the amount of artistic growth and exploration that is happening. I mean the fact that Lunchbox is now doing all new Canadian plays, the Grand. This is all in my time here. All these things are happening. The Opera- when they're not doing a world premiere they're doing a Canadian premiere. It's extraordinary. For the size of the opera company, it's one of the most exciting things going on here.

When I accepted this job, the request was "Dream impossible artistic dreams." That was the request. There was never any conversation about the economics. There still is never any conversation about the economics. And that is why I came. We are in an enviable position in the arts in this country right now.

Frontier Thespian My wife, Lindsay Burns, has been predicting for a couple years that the cultural zeitgeist is going to hit Calgary and we better be ready to shine when it happens because those things hit you for a while and then they move on. Do you feel that too?

Dennis Garnhum That's exactly the point of what I feel, and I think it's in the next bunch of years. Because I feel with the influx of energy, we've to to ride this. So Theatre Calgary premieres an 18 character new Canadian play.

Frontier Thespian Bringing it back to what was going on at TC 25 years ago.

Dennis Garnhum But see, there's a perfect example of the economics. Is it related? A little bit. Because it has to do with the comfort. It's not just the art, we could do The Wars because we had a sponsor that meant we wouldn't bankrupt the company.

Frontier Thespian You also have to have the guts to do it. I remember Kevin McKendrick telling me from his time on the Canada Council that new Canadian plays outsell chestnuts all the time. But it's hard to get that through people's heads, it still seems like a tough sell. So you have to have the guts to do it, and then go, "Oh, yeah, look, it did sell." And do it well, obviously.

Dennis Garnhum And in this town, we're getting a bit of a licence right now. I take the credit for going for it, but I also realize that my job, in another community, would be all about sustainability. When I accepted this job, the request was "Dream impossible artistic dreams." That was the request. There was never any conversation about the economics. There still is never any conversation about the economics. And that is why I came. We are in an enviable position in the arts in this country right now. And it's a credit to Ian and Tom and Gillian and all the artists that have worked here.

Frontier Thespian Despite the boom, we hear from some theatres that audiences are down. I don't get that feeling when I come to TC. How's your audience? Is it growing?

Dennis Garnhum It's extraordinary. This year we have popped the gaskets all over the place. We've been around 8200 subscribers for the past five years. This year we finished at 9000. Unbelievable change. Why that significant? Almost every play this season doubled their single ticket expectation. So it means not only did we have a thousand more subscribers for the entire run, it also meant every show had another two, three, four thousand people attend it than we anticipated. And we have great record keeping here. Gillian (our Vice-President of Fincance) can guess on a dime how many people are going to walk in the doors. It's a math that I can't fight- but now I can. And Gillian is the happiest person that the numbers are not working this year. So I can't speak for any of the other companies, but I can say, and I hope people understand this, but up until recently I used to say "You know what, we all struggle and we all work hard for the money in this city." Because is it flowing? No, it's not flowing, not to us. We have some nice sponsors and those people are great. But- the difference in my understanding now is that I can't deny that everybody else in the country would die to have this city's financial support around them.

Frontier Thespian There's a lot of talk about that. In Calgary the streets are paved in money. Like in that Globe and Mail article as well. But talking to jobbing actors and technicians and they consistently say that they don't feel it's trickling down to them. There's people that are actually moving away just because it's a really expensive city to live in right now. Do you hear that? Do you have any possible response to that? Does that worry you?

Dennis Garnhum I take that relative. Because on one hand I think artists, in this city for example, are underpaid, like they are everywhere else in Canada. But it's harder here because going to the grocery store is painful. So that equation is terribly painful. But if you look at Beauty and the Beast right now, we're employing 55 artists for two months. Just for this city. So the people that get the most from that holdover is actually the workers. We don't make a lot on the holdovers. We really don't.

Frontier Thespian Right. Because you're close to the "nut" on it. You're making a bit, but the artists get an extra two weeks or a month or whatever the final holdover turns out to be.

Dennis Garnhum Yeah. And believe it or not, and I'll tell you true, I programmed Beauty and the Beast for a few very specific reasons. One was to bring in new audiences, i.e. children and young people. Just to come to our theatre. So consciously, it was an effort to bring people to our theatre. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people who've never been to Theatre Calgary are showing up. (And we can tell: they literally don't know where the door is.) Which is fantastic. But! What's fantastic is we decided to do it right. So you're right, that's over a million dollar show and it cost us over a million dollars. If we had different intentions, we would have programmed it just as we did and spent two bucks on it.

Frontier Thespian Right. Make it a cash cow.

Dennis Garnhum And honestly? If it were an economy where we would have needed it, I would have done that. But literally? We're going to make money on it, but not much, not compared to what one would think. Because we're sold out every night for two months. That's unbelievable. But to get back to your question, it's a tricky thing. We still can't hire our construction staff to work full time to build our sets. And so they have to work around what we've come up with. And it still comes down to a financial equation of co-producing or whatever. And it makes me... it's all my passion and I'm working on it. It's very painful. It's painful not to have them working full time. It drives me insane.

Frontier Thespian So if you do a co-pro that doesn't originate here, that cuts them out of the equation, or if you do a brought-in show.

Dennis Garnhum Yeah. It's all more complicated than I think people realize. So we go, we're going to bring in Skydive, which, with FUSE, we're going to help them with the next level of script and all that. But they have the show, so do we not do the show because our workers won't work? But literally, it's a good question. One solution is, we're working on Dirty Rotten Scoundrels right now. I'm fully working on it in terms of the design. We're trying to get the design done early in the summer so we can build it in two parts, so our crew can work longer. So we'll build it during Skydive, kind of thing. Which is clever, and we've started to figure that one out. We can actually build out of order because it doesn't really matter, and it keeps them working.

Frontier Thespian Sweet. For those of us that have been here a long time, a breakthrough in the local theatre scene seemed to happen in the late 90s when Calgary passed Edmonton in the total number of workweeks each year. But there still seems to be this perception that Edmonton is the theatre capital of Alberta, even though it's a good decade since we passed them in terms of how much professional paid work happens in each city. Why do you think that is? Why do we suffer from that comparison?

My goal is not to make us better than Toronto, my goal is not to make us better than New York. Or comparable. My goal is to make us fantastic.

Dennis Garnhum It's a great question. It goes back to one of my foundational beliefs about Calgary. As soon as Calgary gets over its identity crisis, it will blossom. So the identity crisis is, we're smaller than Edmonton. We're Calgary, we're not Edmonton. Why do you even start to compare? Because in Toronto what they say is, this is better than New York. People love to compliment me on shows, but it's always comparative, they always say, "This show's better than what's in Toronto." And I say, why not just say it's great? Because I don't care what's going on in Toronto, I really don't. My goal is not to make us better than Toronto, my goal is not to make us better than New York. Or comparable. My goal is to make us fantastic. So people then say, my god, there's so many artists in Calgary, and they're working and the work is so good. But I think it's related to the perception thing. If you look at the Globe and Mail article online, and check out the feedback, there's 50 comments, and the first 30 are all nasty.

Frontier Thespian People hate Calgary right now. Because we've got money.

Dennis Garnhum And that's what it is, saying "You people will never have culture."

Frontier Thespian Like money and culture can't co-exist in the same sphere.

Dennis Garnhum And it kind of goes back to that article...I don't think it's about putting bigger ads in the national papers. I think it's about just carrying on, focusing on the work, and the word will get out. And the word is getting out. That's why there was that article in the Globe. They called me and they said they come out and interview me, and I said I'll do you one better. I would like to show you the town, because you won't believe it just based on me sitting and talking to you. So what we did was, I got Mark (Bellamy, Vertigo Theatre), Martie (Fishman, Lunchbox Theatre), The Grand, Steve Schroeder (OYR), and when she showed up, I walked her to all those people. I showed off the city. Because that's how we do it. So literally I had them all standing by, they all had 10 minutes with her. We went and I showed her the Grand, I showed her Lunchbox, I showed her Vertigo's gorgeous theatre, I took her to Steve Schroeder. Because I've discovered, until you've been here? The boom and everything? You've got to come experience it, it's different than just hearing about it. I've given you a long answer, but my point it, I think it's coming, that clarity. We're on the verge of changing those perceptions. It is a really good question. What is the answer? I think the question about that is related to everything else. I think the bigger is Calgary identity. Maybe it's because cowboy and money is all they hear.

Frontier Thespian Yeah, I think that's part of it. I think part of it, too, is Edmonton having U of A, and sending great theatre artists out for years. And the Citadel being this monolithic institution.

Dennis Garnhum There's lots going on up there. And I think it's still being held onto. But times are a-changin'.

Frontier Thespian Well then, when you mention those negative comments about the Globe article- if people are backlashing against it, it means something must be happening, right? People don't take the time if it's not happening.

Dennis Garnhum Right, right! you know what, that's really great, Grant, I hadn't thought of that. When I first read the comments, I was really upset. But you're right, you're right. You'll see, the later comments are all nice, but about ah lf way through someone from Calgary wrote in and said, "I don't know what you're all talking about. The arts scene here is booming and it's fantastic. Go ahead and attack me now." And it's fantastic, because then they did, right? But you're right. And that's what I've said to people, too. The reason that article was on the front page is because something's happening. That wasn't a fluff article, that was a "What's going on?" article.

Frontier Thespian Well, maybe Lindsay and you are right, maybe the zeitgeist is coming, and people are starting to hear it. OK, here's something completely different, I don't know what you can tell me about this. There's this persist ant rumour about TC getting a new space in the new Encana building. What can you tell me about that?

Dennis Garnhum We had a look at space there, but it wasn't a good fit.

Frontier Thespian Back before the Max Bell Theatre, when TC was in a smaller space, they used to have a touring kids company, they used to have a midnight series. So my other question is are you looking for ways to produce non-mainstage type work? Sounds like you are.

Dennis Garnhum We're doing it next season, we're doing Frankenstein.

Frontier Thespian And is that going to be on the mainstage?

Dennis Garnhum Yes. Because of our limitation on space, and because of it's a good fit for that show. So, new next year, is the co-presentation of Catalyst Theatre's Frankenstein in conjunction with One Yellow Rabbit High Performance Rodeo. So it's in the Rodeo, but we're co-presenting it. This is the beginning of the second stage. This is a way to test the waters. Because what I have to do, what I ave to say to all these Theatre Calgary people who don't know about all these other options, is that Theatre Calgary could present different kinds of work in different ways. If we were to take over a smaller venue, for a second stage...to me second stage is a philosophy, it's not a building. It would be nice to have a little theatre, but I don't want to get the theatre and then start programming and start saying, "You have to come there!"

Frontier Thespian The old midnight series was on the mainstage. It was just at midnight.

I don't think it's any secret that we have a desire to expand. I mean, we've maxed out. We do 6 plays, it's not like we can do 10 plays in the same space.

Dennis Garnhum Yeah, yeah, believe me, I looked at that, too and it's all possible. But I don't think it's any secret that we have a desire to expand. I mean, we've maxed out. We do 6 plays, it's not like we can do 10 plays in the same space. It's not viable. FUSE was the first step. So now FUSE will kind of feed into the second stage. That's the idea, right? FUSE will connect, it's all part of the master plan. Same with why we now have FUEL. Which is the new assistant program for directors and playwrights. It's all part of building the world. I don't, at this point, envision expanding our mainstage in any way. I envision expanding the world around it. We have Shari (Wattling) and Susan (McNair-Reid), two art centered positions that weren't there before. It's fantastic. Those things are monumental if you think about it. Because in a company this size, you don't just add a person. I mean, they get real salaries. And they will forever. But it's kind of like the incubation. I mean, I love where FUSE started, how we just banged it up that first year. And now we're doing three west coast plays this year. It's so fantastic, it's going faster than I expected. Now we'd love to do two months of FUSE, you know? Seriously. It's fantastic. So it's all there, the planning's all there. And we've been exploring for two or three years. So do I think we'll get a second stage? I hope so.

Frontier Thespian So it's a second space you're looking for, not a new home.

Dennis Garnhum It could be. Oh yeah, we could move the whole thing somewhere. The thing about it, and I don't mean to sound colourful, but the thing about it is one should always dream in technicolour. So we do. And this is the city to dream in technicolour. Look at all these great things. Like look at The Grand; that was technicolour dreaming. So we're not going little, like maybe we should add a little bit of whatever. I'm still looking...and for all these, you know, little steps that we add in, whether it's FUSE or whatever, there's the 10 that I'm not talking about because they're too much on the "Dream list" still. And because we have the extraordinary foundation of the six play season, I'm not working on that so much. Because it's there and it's working. I can spend a lot of my time doing all this other stuff. It's hysterical. I mean I just walked in the door and we added FUEL. So I've just agreed to mentor four directors. I love it, I'm excited, it's great!

Frontier Thespian That's fantastic, thank you. Any last words you want to get out?

Dennis Garnhum People are calling this one of the best seasons in a long time. It's extraordinary, we get that usually daily. And I love that. This past season was emblematic of all the things that I believe in. From new creation to having Calgary front and center in Our Town to big musicals to quirky little Canadian- I mean, it really matched my sensibilities, my intentions. More than anything, the word I want you to get out is about the Fuel program because it's new. Playwrights and directors need apply. Again, it's from zero, Shari and I created this. And we're paying people. $2000, so not bad compared to zero.

Frontier Thespian Thanks, Dennis.