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Opinion: The STC board owes John McHenry an apology

Writer Kim Fahner says the recently ousted artistic director of the Sudbury Theatre Centre worked hard to tackle the facility’s financial crisis and the impact of the pandemic, and his unceremonious removal was an insult both to McHenry’s work and Sudbury’s theatre community 

I was dismayed to hear that the board of directors of the Sudbury Theatre Centre (STC) decided not to renew Artistic Director John McHenry’s contract mid-season. More shocking is how the STC decided to release this information and the sheer disrespect they showed a man who did such amazing work in our community. 

I wanted someone on the board of directors of the Sudbury Theatre Centre to thank John McHenry. No one did. 

Not properly. 

So, I am — as a local playwright and STC supporter — writing this public letter to thank a man who thoughtfully and carefully minded our local theatre through a pandemic, and who arrived to take the helm of that theatre at a time of financial crisis, before the novel coronavirus decimated theatres across the world.

I find it particularly atrocious that John McHenry’s work as artistic director at the Sudbury Theatre Centre has yet to be recognized properly in public. As a playwright who has received two Theatre Creators’ grants through the STC and the Ontario Arts Council’s recommender grants program — for my plays "Sparrows Over Slag" (2018) and "Letters to the Man in the Moon" (2019) — I want to thank Mr. McHenry for encouraging local playwrights to continue with our projects and search out sources of funding.

Both of those plays had staged readings at the Play Smelter Theatre Festival, led by Lisa O’Connell and Pat the Dog Theatre Creation, in Spring 2018 and 2019.

So much of creating a new play is having a professional theatre that will shepherd you through the process of writing, dramaturgy, workshopping and staged readings. It takes time, care and liaison work. It takes, too, a commitment to the notion that what finally happens on a stage, in front of an audience, may not be the most important part of a theatre experience — even if that’s the part that audience members will likely most remember. 

Yes, it takes someone who knows that words, that the plays that we write as playwrights, are crucial to how theatre is created.

John cared about this. He helped develop many voices in our community, taking the time and care to help foster emerging playwrights. McHenry offered a group of local playwrights — including Lara Bradley, Jesse Brady, Rick Duthie, Sarah Gartshore, Matt Heiti and myself — a place to regularly meet to discuss our work. We met on Monday nights, when the theatre is traditionally ‘dark’ because productions take that night off. We named ourselves The Dark Wrights. 

This little group has continued to create new work for the stage, and we have discussed questions of craft and offered one another support and dramaturgy in creating our new plays. 

That McHenry encouraged such an informal, but crucial, creative undertaking, was encouraging. That he wanted it to happen inside the walls of the STC building said a lot about how much he valued writers who create new plays, that he knew the theatre creation process is complex and should be honoured and respected. 

Mr. McHenry, along with Ralph McIntosh, also encouraged the start-up of a pilot program, From Page to Stage, an eight-week long series of classes with teen playwrights from the Sudbury area. I was pleased to be involved in this program from November 2021 to January 2022, working with Kelsey Rutledge to teach students about the playwriting process and helping them to create a collaboratively written play about their pandemic experiences as teenagers. 

Part of McHenry’s work included the PlayMine Script Reading Series, which has showcased Northern Ontario playwrights’ work via staged readings that are open to the public. 

After a playwright has written a play, the playwright needs to hear it read by actors and needs to see how an audience will react to its structure and nuances. These readings allow us to view our work in a new light, to make more revisions, to strengthen our plays in preparation for production on a stage.

Writing a play is a collaborative and time-consuming process. That these plays are written about our Sudbury stories is something else that must be protected and cultivated. My newest play, All The Things I Draw, was meant to have a staged reading through the PlayMine Series back in March 2020, but that was cancelled due to the pandemic. 

It had been rescheduled to April 1, 2022, but has fallen by the wayside in the shift in administration at the STC. 

For me, as a playwright, this is disappointing. No formal notice was given to me of this program being cut a month or two before the date of the staged reading. 

If the STC doesn’t continue with encouraging strong dramaturgical programming, I question whether it’s the professional theatre that it’s grown up to be over the last 50 years. 

Trying to make a theatre “more economically feasible” after a pandemic doesn’t just mean producing popular plays or musicals. It also means programming strong, independent Canadian plays, especially plays written by a diverse group of playwrights — including BIPOC, LGBTQ2S, female, and Northern Ontario writers. 

It means engaging and challenging the theatre audience and trusting that they are able to encounter (and enjoy) new plays by local playwrights. Too, it means continued partnerships with other provincial and national non-profit theatre groups and funding bodies. 

It feels a real blow to think that STC is at risk of losing its status as the only bricks-and-mortar professional theatre in Northeastern Ontario. The decimation of the humanities and arts programs at Laurentian University last spring were brutal and have had a marked effect on the arts in the City of Greater Sudbury. 

I imagine that we have yet to see the ripple effect of those post-secondary programming cuts to the humanities, including the elimination of the theatre and music programs. 

One less arts organization in Sudbury would be yet another blow to the cultural fabric of a town that has come so far over the last 50 years, from the time when the STC was started. It feels, to me, that we’re moving backwards instead of forward, and it feels that transparency is something that is too much to ask for anymore. That is terribly worrisome. 

Above all, though, the STC’s board of directors owes John McHenry an apology for the thoughtless way in which they announced his departure, for the way in which they callously disregarded the care with which he took on a very difficult task — in trying to right a theatre that was toppling perilously because of poor prior leadership at the board and staff level. 

Still, against all odds, John managed to do all of this with grace, kindness, good humour and professionalism. John is owed thanks, so I will extend it to him here.

For me, he has been a mentor and a friend, and I am grateful for the work he has done for professional theatre in Sudbury. I only wish that perhaps the board of directors had thought to survey the thoughts of local theatre supporters, including STC patrons, as well as local playwrights, actors, and theatre workers. 

One can hope, perhaps, the board will move forward with greater care in putting out a national call for a new artistic director in the coming months, considering long-term planning with vision and foresight. 

Anything less is unacceptable. 

Kim Fahner is a poet, playwright, writer and educator based in Greater Sudbury.


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