Councillors make case for new arts centre
By Al Beeber on June 2, 2021.
LETHBRIDGE HERALDabeeber@lethbridgeherald.com Two city council members with decades of experience on stage say a new performing arts centre is needed for Lethbridge.Mark Campbell and Jeff Carlson are well known to audiences for their work in a wide range of roles over the years and both believe it’s time Lethbridge moved forward with an arts centre that will fulfill a range of needs for many years.
Both councillors also say funding right now is not available for such a facility but keeping it in the Capital Improvement Plan will maintain it as a priority.
“We’re the third largest city in Alberta; we need to start acting like it,” said Carlson Friday afternoon.
Carlson is the chair of the Performing Arts Steering Committee and a founding member of New West Theatre, a group whose genesis started in the backyard of former longtime artistic director Brian Parkinson when the theatre troupe known as Great West Theatre left its previous home at the Empress Theatre in Fort Macleod.
“Ten of us sat in Brian Parkinson’s backyard and started talking,” Carlson recalled. After discovering the Yates was open during summer months and at Christmas, New West was born, filling seats in those seasons for years.
Without a pandemic the Yates would be filled for most open days during the year, making it inaccessible for touring groups and local organizations wanting to stage shows.
“If a new company wanted to get going, there would be no place for them to go,” said Carlson. But a new facility would free up performance opportunities at the Yates, he said.
A plan for the proposed arts centre shows it would consist of a 950-seat performing arts theatre and a 240-seat multi-purpose room with music capability. The planned facility also has about 15,000 square feet of common space for receptions, washrooms, performers and office space.
Two studies, including one in 2010, identified a need for a larger performing arts space.
By keeping the project in the CIP, this “allows us to seek funding” and it tells politicians that “Lethbridge is primed and ready to go,” said Carlson.
In 1967, when the Yates was constructed, the city had four other venues for performing arts, said Carlson. Now the city has the recently renovated Yates with a reduced number of seats to improve comfort as well as the Enmax Centre which can be reconfigured in several ways to accommodate audiences of as few as 1,200.
But Carlson points out the Enmax Centre seating “is uncomfortable,” while lauding the fact it has been a valuable asset as a performance venue.
“It’s doing a great job of bringing people” to see performances, he said.
Carlson said the city needs to look to the future because a facility — as the Yates has shown — will last 50 to 75 years.
Twenty years from now, Carlson said, residents won’t want to look back and ask why they didn’t think of a long-range plan.
A 950-seat facility is a “compromise between a size of facility that will serve our community in the future and what’s affordable. My dearest hope is we can bring the costs down,” said Carlson of the estimated $60-million cost.
A venue of about 950 seats would also draw more touring groups to the city, groups who otherwise may go to the Esplanade in Medicine Hat, he suggested.
A bigger venue will also appeal to companies considering setting up headquarters in Lethbridge, Carlson said, because it will provide their employees a facility they’re accustomed to having elsewhere.
Campbell, who is known not only for theatre but his work on radio and television, said the Yates is 96 per cent filled during the year.
“There is an absolute need for a performing arts centre,” said Campbell, adding it’s a quality of life issue for the city.
“The Yates is a wonderful facility….historically, the Yates has basically been booked 96 per cent of the time so there is a lot of people that don’t have accessibility to a performing arts centre and so there is the need. . .there’s a quote we’ve had as many as 1,500 arts events a year and so when you say there’s not many arts events taking place and the Yates is almost always booked up, there is an absolute need. That’s first and foremost, the absolute need.
“There’s also the other esoteric parts of a performing arts centre, the quality of life aspect. It’s having a wonderful facility, not only for local groups but also for touring groups that want to come in, to perform for people in a really nice venue and that’s part of it.”
He said a bigger facility could be used for a range of uses including graduations, films and presentations.
“Who uses a performing arts centre? It’s not just about a theatre company or touring groups.”
Campbell said a preferred site has been chosen — the city common area downtown basically in the area of the Civic Centre, former YMCA site and RCMP headquarters, adding “a comprehensive study will be done in the next CIP that hopefully really looks at really expanding on the idea of having a performing arts centre there.”
“There’s a lot of excitement because it’s kind of in the downtown core. People can really get excited about it.”
He said such a facility will enhance and energize the community.
“I’m kind of excited about that. Having it downtown will be an exciting part.”
A top quality facility is not unknown to Lethbridge, Campbell said, referring to the Majestic Theatre in the early 20th century which he said was known as “the jewel of the west.”
“We have a history of having a good theatre.”
Campbell first hit the stage when he was in high school in the early 1970s and played the Yates almost yearly until the pandemic, he said, with groups such as Playgoers, Lethbridge Musical Theatre, Centre Stage and New West.
“It’s been a wonderful run.”
And Campbell thinks a new facility is about future generations of performers.
“This is what it’s all about: getting kids excited about getting to perform in a really nice theatre. . .it would be nice to give them something state-of-the-art.”
Like Carlson, Campbell sees a facility as a project for the future, not the short term.
“Realistically, that’s not going to happen. We need money. Money is not available at this time; we’ve got a tough economy so it’s making sure the talk doesn’t go away. That’s the important thing.” Follow @albeebHerald on Twitter 4
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