Video — Why Not Theatre testimonial for Creative Export Strategy
Transcript of the video — Why Not Theatre testimonial for Creative Export Strategy
Video length: 00:3:22
[Soft music plays]
[Night scenes of bustling Toronto streets, suggesting a vibrant, creative urban environment]
[A man begins speaking off-screen, then appears on-screen]
Man: I'm a person who believes that it's our job to make the world a better place as artists.
[Aerial shots of a highway and the downtown skyline, followed by vehicles passing in front of a don’t walk sign]
[The words "Creative Export Strategy and Why Not Theatre" appears on screen]
Man: My name is Ravi Jain. I'm the founder and the co-artistic director of Why Not Theatre.
[Ravi seated in a warmly lit studio decorated with posters and theatre memorabilia]
Ravi: Creating space for people who have been underestimated is a real passion of mine.
[A poster of the play, Mahabharata, featuring a South Asian woman]
Ravi: Our mission from the start has been about challenging the status quo of what stories are told, who gets to tell them, and most importantly, who they're for.
[Close-ups of a poster for the production, Brimful of Asha, alternate with a close-up of a framed newspaper article about the theatre company. These images highlight the diversity of cast members and the productions]
Ravi: To be able to go abroad and share this work and have it resonate beyond our city limits is a really important part of what we do. Prince Hamlet is a production that we made in 2016.
[A close-up of a Prince Hamlet poster, followed by a close-up of two Why Not Theatre identification badges]
[Ravi in the studio]
Ravi: We reconfigured the story of Hamlet around a deaf perspective, which is a character of Horatio, who's Hamlet's best friend and is the last person alive to tell the story.
[A sign language chart posted on a door]
Ravi: So the innovation of that was something we stumbled into because we just took the time to really work together to engage deaf audiences and hearing audiences equally. And this kind of full integration isn’t commonly done in North America.
[Ravi and a male colleague in an office in front of a white board displaying a production schedule]
[Ravi picks up and examines a blue painted mask off shelves filled with similar masks. Close-up of a yellow mask]
Ravi: We toured this show across Canada, and it was important for us to go to America because there is a huge deaf population in the States.
[Close-ups of the white board showing touring plans for England and Australia]
[Ravi in the studio]
Ravi: So we had a seven-city tour that emerged, all throughout the States. We literally went from the East Coast to the West.
[The cast of Prince Hamlet rehearses, with performers communicating through spoken dialogue and American Sign Language. This is overlaid onto scenes of Toronto streets at night]
Ravi: The biggest challenge for this show was the scale of the team.
[Split screen with Ravi in the studio on the left and actors rehearsing on the right]
Ravi: That was like 17 people on the road, and so the costs are astronomical to tour that many people.
[Ravi in the studio]
Ravi: That's precisely why the Canadian Heritage Funding was so vital to our success.
[Prince Hamlet cast members rehearsing their actions, overlaid on scenes of Toronto streets at night]
Ravi: It was really helping to support costs associated with the tour, and it allowed us to create a bunch of marketing material to engage other presenters, encourage them to come see it.
[Split screen with Ravi speaking on the left and actors and a director rehearsing on the right]
Ravi: So overall, that resulted in a 174% increase in our revenue from touring.
[Actors rehearse, with one kicking her legs in the air and exclaiming, while others watch, seated in chairs]
[Ravi in the studio]
Ravi: There aren't a lot of BIPOC companies who have the privilege to tour around the world.
You know, when you look at the trajectory of growth for us as a company, last year alone, we paid a million dollars to artists in artist fees.
[Various photos of Why Not staff attending conferences, trade shows and trade missions around the world]
Ravi: I think that the Creative Export Strategy is crucial for people like our company. Not only is the funding important, but the opportunities like the trade missions have been really exciting for us because those missions have started conversations that have either directly resulted in touring to other venues or they’re relationships that have been cultivated that will yield definitely in the future.
[Ravi works on his laptop which displays an image of actors in lavish costumes from a theatre production]
[Ravi talks to a colleague in front of the white board]
Ravi: And for us, why that's important is we can really say that the Canadian government is behind us.
[Ravi in the studio]
Ravi: They understand the value of exporting Canadian stories, they believe in the importance of this, and they're deeply invested.
[Music]
[Canada.ca/creative-export-strategy appears on the screen against a night scene of Toronto’s skyline]
[The Canada wordmark (government logo) appears on a black screen]
Page details
- Date modified: