Sock ‘n’ Buskin Theatre Company said it is struggling to access proper performance space on campus as it tries to expand its programming.
In past years, the company has put on two shows, a Shakespeare play and a musical. This year they decided to put on five.
Co-artistic directors Matt Hertendy and board member Cassie Nagy said this year was an “experimental” one for the theatre company.
“It’s a really really old company, but I think it’s finally getting a chance to sort of branch out and experiment a little bit more,” Nagy said.
She said this experimentation is not without its challenges.
The Kailash Mital theatre, usually the home to Sock ‘n’ Buskin productions, is too expensive for the theatre company to rent more than once a year.
This is because of the cost of lighting and sound technicians, according to Kailash Mital theatre manager Cedric Broten.
“It’s not like we’re making money from them. It’s a cost recovery process,” Broten explained.
Broten said he’s not surprised the company is struggling to access proper space. He said the number of spaces suitable to a theatre group on campus has shrunk over the years.
“There’s a serious space crunch on campus for anything,” he added.
Nagy said with the increased amount of performances, the board spent more time on booking space than on finding volunteers or casting this year.
Director of student affairs Ryan Flannagan said as long as student groups are organized, “there’s more than enough capacity to get the space booked.”
Spaces booked through student affairs are also free to student groups.
However, the lecture halls and other venues more suited to performances are generally booked through conference services and must be paid for with rates that depend on the space, Nagy said.
“Even spaces like the amphitheatre outside near the Loeb Building needs to be booked for a price,” she said via email.
While the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences donated a space for Sock ‘n’ Buskin to perform The Tempest in Dunton Tower, venues for other performances this year have been more costly and difficult to access.
The cost of space mean the company has to decrease the number of performances and put less money towards tech, sets, costumes and marketing strategies, she said.
Nagy said this situation is frustrating for a Carleton University Students’ Association-levied group because it’s “a little counter-productive to be given money from the school only for us to pay it back to the school.”
The need to book space also leads to timing problems. The next Sock ‘n’ Buskin play, The Mouse that Roared, will be performed primarily at the Carleton University Art Gallery, with one performance in a residence lecture room.
Flannagan said the ideal solution would be a space on campus for theatre groups.
“In the perfect world there would be student space that is specifically for students and societies and we would have a wonderful space on campus that was designed for stuff like Sock ‘n’ Buskin,” he said. “But we don’t have that so everyone has to kind of work within the confines of the infrastructure that we have here at the university.”
Hertendy said morale in the cast is high despite these issues.
“When you have to do a show in a strange venue that’s not a typical performance space it’s just a new dynamic for the performers and the audience,” he said. “It’s just a fun challenge—that’s how I’m looking at it.”
Nagy agreed with Hertendy’s statement.
“What we lack in big fancy sets we make up in passion and talent,” she said.
Hertendy said after this season the company will be able to work through their space problems more effectively. Nagy said part of the strategy will be to form long-term linkages with certain faculties and spaces.
“The partnership we had with the Faculty of Arts and Social Science was a wonderful experience,” she said. “I hope we are able to make such connections in the future.”
She said Sock ‘n’ Buskin would continue working to convince administration that the arts are valuable on campus.
“Being taken seriously as a student organized, on-campus company that specializes in performance is a difficult task,” she said.
