ten. That’s the number of requests Cédric Labrat-Roy has made over the past two years for his play Slippery terrain, which will be shown next January in the Fred Barry Room of the Denis Pelletier Theater. The Arts Council of Canada (CAC), the Council of Arts and Letters of Quebec (CALQ), and the Council of Arts of Montreal (CAM) were contacted.
Two applications were accepted as part of the 2022 batch, for research and creation of the piece. In total, The Least of Things theater company, co-founded by Cédric Labrat-Roy, received $26,000 from CAC and CALQ to rent rehearsal buildings, do stage scouting, and write the script. The problem: None of the three arts councils wanted to support him in this way Slippery terrain It moves from paper to stage.
Without the artist’s insistence, this “Scandinavian thriller” would probably have been shelved.
But Cédric Labrat-Roy decided to go ahead with his project. For this to come to fruition, he left his food job in the cultural sector at the beginning of October to devote all his time to the show. Volunteering.
“I hold several positions on this show: I am production manager, director, performer, and costume and props designer. My only income is from the box office. The performers will also be paid from the box office revenue, i.e. 5%. Up to the minimum salaries that The union demand is too high for me and it’s ridiculous: $56.91 per performance and $15.25 per hour of rehearsal. »
“With an 80% room occupancy rate and the $8,000 I’m trying to raise in donations and sponsorships, I’ll be able to balance my budget,” the 29-year-old designer adds, “without giving me a salary.”
What if spectators are rarer than expected? If he fails to raise the necessary sponsorship amount of $8,000? “It will be up to me to pay for the risk in the offer. The problem is that Desjardins refused to give me a line of credit because I had no financial backing…”
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