Garratt 'confident' in Blyth Festival's position, has board's support amid Factory lawsuit

BY SHAWN LOUGHLIN

The Toronto Star is reporting that the city’s Factory Theatre is suing the Blyth Festival for $115,000 in relation to the cancellation of The Waltz, which was scheduled to be part of the Festival’s 2023 season.

 

The article, written by Joshua Chong, the newspaper’s culture reporter, and published Tuesday night, says Factory issued a statement of claim on Sept. 10 for more than $115,000 in damages. The claim has not yet been tested in court and the Festival has yet to officially file a statement of defence.

 

The Waltz, written by regular Festival playwright and director Marie Beath Madian, was abruptly cancelled on June 5 of 2023. It was scheduled for 14 productions in the Blyth Festival’s Memorial Hall between July 12 and 29 that year.

 

“Blyth did not cite any basis for the termination by the terms of the Presenting Agreement itself,” Factory Theatre has alleged in its court filing. “Its stated reason for the termination was that it no longer wished to engage in discussions with Factory Theatre about lighting design, even though its own stated deadlines for preliminary and final lighting design would not expire for another two and three weeks, respectively.”

 

The statement of claim says that Factory Theatre was to bear the pre-production costs for the show and, in turn, the Festival would present the production at its own venue. Factory Theatre alleges that the Festival broke the agreement and, as a result, Factory Theatre claims it is owed more than $90,000 in damages: $58,708.24 in “unrecoverable costs” to mount the production, such as playwright royalties and artist fees; $15,000 in contract cancellation fees as outlined in the theatres’ agreement, and $16,747 in lost Canada Council for the Arts grants as a result of the show’s cancellation. Furthermore, Factory Theatre is claiming $25,000 more for “punitive, aggravated or exemplary damages.”

 

In the article, Factory said the charges were invoiced to the Festival in June of 2023, but payment had yet to be received. According to the statement of claim, the Festival had promised to build the sets, costumes and props for the co-production of the play scheduled for 2022 and then invoice Factory Theatre for half of the cost. However, again, according to the filings, the Festival did not produce what it said it would, leading the Factory Theatre to have to do it “entirely at its own cost” which would eventually add up to $34,000. While Factory has alleged that Blyth representatives either cancelled or failed to attend planning events for the production, the theatre is not claiming damages from the Blyth Festival for those incidents.

 

When the 2022 production was cancelled, the official word from the Blyth Festival was that the cancellation could be attributed to lost rehearsal time due to COVID-19 cases among company members.

 

“Blyth’s conduct departs markedly from that which would be expected regarding its treatment of a fellow member of the not-for-profit theatre community,” Factory Theatre noted in its court filings. “From the outset, Blyth displayed a disregard for its commitments to put on the joint production with Factory Theatre.”

 

The Waltz would go on to be produced at Factory Theatre and then tour to cities like Winnipeg and Ottawa.

 

In a statement issued to Chong ahead of the publishing of the story, Blyth Festival Artistic Director Gil Garratt responded to the allegations made in the civil lawsuit from Factory Theatre.

 

“Thanks for giving us this opportunity to comment on the issues raised by Factory’s lawsuit concerning the technical rider for The Waltz,” Garratt wrote in a statement addressed to Chong. “The last thing Blyth wanted was a cancellation of this production, a play Blyth had in commission since 2018. The Blyth Festival suffered substantial costs due to the cancellation. We are still in the process of negotiation with Factory. We remain hopeful that we can come to an understanding that benefits both companies.
“The background to this situation is that the theatre sector as a whole is struggling in this province and across the country, facing demoralizing deficits, shrinking funding and crushing expense increases,” the Festival’s statement continues. “The costs of producing theatre have skyrocketed in the last four years, and yet base funding for the councils has remained static for decades. Attendance plummeted over the course of the pandemic, and it is still unclear for some companies if their audiences will ever return.

 

“For live performance in Canada, recovering from the lasting impacts of the COVID pandemic is not a given and the casualty list continues to grow. The situation you are asking about is emblematic of an ecology on life support.

 

“The Blyth Festival just completed a very successful season and reached a major milestone, its 50th anniversary, and Factory Theatre recently celebrated its 54th. These two institutions have profound legacies that have helped shape theatre in Canada as we know it. But an inspiring legacy alone doesn’t guarantee a viable future. Theatre in Canada needs help,” Garratt’s statement concludes.

 

In an e-mail to The Citizen from Blyth Festival General Manager Rachael King, she stated that the lawsuit was an unexpected development and she claimed that the Blyth Festival has not heard from the Factory Theatre in over a year, since the Festival had made its last offer to settle.

 

“Every element of this dispute surrounded the technical rider for the 2023 presentation agreement between the theatres; months of efforts resulted in an impasse and the cancellation of the production,” King said in her e-mail.

 

Garratt, in text messages to The Citizen, echoed King’s statements, saying that, “the whole thing is so unexpected” and supporting King’s claim that the local theatre hadn’t heard from Factory in more than a year.

 

He claims that after the cancellation, Factory sent the Blyth Festival an invoice and the Festival replied within seven business days. The Festival then sent Factory an offer to settle two weeks after that, Garratt says, and the next correspondence received from the Festival was last week’s lawsuit filings.

 

Garratt also noted that, “we have the full support of the Board of Directors and are very confident in our position on all of this.”