Off the couch and into the playhouse: Calgary theatre companies report larger, younger audiences post pandemic

Numbers show live performances reign supreme for a night out in Calgary, and while the concert calendar has been stacked since the world opened back up, more and more Calgarians are discovering live theatre.

Vertigo Theatre is reporting its highest-ever subscriber levels heading into the new season, at about 5,000 season ticket holders — 800 new for this year.

Artistic director Jack Grinhaus says last year’s season saw sellouts and award nominations. He says mysteries and thrillers — Vertigo’s wheelhouse — are seeing tremendous popularity because people want to both escape and engage.

“It isn’t just one or the other, I don’t think people just want something for their brains to disappear for a bit, the world is a scary place at the moment,” he said.

Grinhaus says the pandemic has left audiences numb, and that the anxiety of the experience has not yet been dealt with.

“We just kind of woke up one day and went ‘OK, we are moving on,'” he added. “But that was a really intense experience, and I think it intensified people in a way, and numbed them in a way that they need the kind of things to be really grabbing their attention and focus.”

He also posits the increased ads for online streaming services are giving people a chance to rethink their entertainment choices.

Vertigo Theatre opens its new season with horror thriller “The Woman in Black” on Sept. 28.

Theatre Calgary is continuing the “Theatre For All” initiative again this year, which offers tickets in the orchestra level at just $44. Artistic director Stafford Arima calls the that deal the “best in town.” 

Last year, 60 per cent of buyers for those seats were brand-new customers to the theatre, but old customers are also coming back in droves.

“The audiences are returning, the audiences are coming back to the theatre,” Arima said.

Theatre Calgary often puts on well-known, critically acclaimed selections. “The Play That Goes Wrong” opens Sept. 6 — it’s an international critical success that has been playing steadily in London since 2012.

Playing well-known titles like last year’s “Beaches” and this year’s “Legally Blonde” can be a happy accident bait-and-switch for the company, as people come see a familiar title and find they love live theatre.

“It is important for new people, new audience members, new patrons who want to come to something that is a little foreign maybe to them, they think of the theatre of maybe just, ‘It’s only Shakespeare.’ We get phone calls I’ll tell you still where people are asking still ‘do I have to wear a tuxedo? Is there a dress code?’ There is not,” Arima said.

The interest of Calgary audiences has also extended to boutique, indie, theatre productions.

Kathryn Smith is the artistic director of Verb Theatre, the mandate of which is exploring cutting edge ideas in cutting edge ways. They say last season they noticed a large upswing in audience members under the age of 40, something they call thrilling.

“I think the reason we saw that is we do the experimental work,” Smith said. “Yes, you can go to Theatre Calgary and get spectacle, but you can also go to the indie companies and get something that Theatre Calgary can’t really do, and that is not a slight to Theatre Calgary, I think that is actually how theatre thrives best, is that we have companies that do the one thing and we have companies that offer something totally different.”

Verb Theatre shows are often very intimate, putting the audience feet away from performers in non-traditional seating arrangements. The shows often challenge larger questions about society and bias.

Verb opens the season with the award-winning ‘Our Fathers, Sons, Lovers, and Little Brothers’ on Sept. 12. The show is billed as a love letter for all Black life, beyond headlines and hashtags.

Tickets are available now, but for those who don’t want to commit right away, you aren’t alone.

“[Calgarians] are really last-minute ticket buyers. Sometimes we don’t know if our show is going to sell really well until two days before opening,” Smith said. “After opening even, is when we see the big pickup in ticket sales because word of mouth is really great in our city, or people come to Arts Commons and see the posters for different shows.”

But if you really want to see a show, there’s no harm in planning ahead. If last season is any testament to the coming one, tickets will sell fast.