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| THEATRE WORLD |
In fact, community is a large item on GCTC's playbill, according to Johnson, who ushers me through the theatre, $11.7- million state-of-the-art building designed by Griffiths Rankin Cook Architects, that not only has all the bells and whistles that accompany a custom designed, well-equipped theatre space, but the distinction of being the first building in Ottawa on the way to becoming gold-certified in Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. Named after one of its major contributors, The Greenberg Family, The word 'green' alludes to much that is positive about the centre.
After a lot of soul searching, the GCTC board decided that the company really had to move out and move on. "Partnering with a developer made the most sense in terms of cash flow, momentum and cost saving," says Johnson." With the Windmill Development Group, an Ottawa based firm which espouses long-term environmental sustainability in protecting and enhancing the local community, the GCTC had found its match. The new theatre centre would be located at the base of a condo development called The Currents Residential Tower with both theatre and condo residents sharing the same energy-saving mechanisms.
Says Johnson, "I think once we found that the values of the developers in creating a green building matched the GCTC values of the company which has always been friendly to social justice issues, it became really interesting to partner with a residential space in order to to create a cultural space." Midday on this sunny Sunday is peaceful in the theatre. The audience hasn't yet arrived for the matinee but already people have dropped into the lobby cafe for a coffee or lunch. It's not buzzing, just relaxed, chummy, a kind of at-home atmosphere that permeates the air. The spacious windows, the "building envelope" that reach up to the second floor landing, is an invitation to look out at the surrounding neighborhood. The picture perfect blue sky and bright sun complete the landscape. "I miss how blue the skies are in Ottawa, even in the winter," said one of my acquaintances who moved down to Mexico to capture an eternal summer. The move from Gladstone Avenue to the corner of Wellington and Holland, where a dry cleaning business once stood before Windmill's green clean-up, meant more than a shiny new plant, but a place which meant something special to GCTC's longtime loyal audiences: a real community hub. (Photo: from Jason Sherman's An Acre of Time. The show premiered at the GCTC in 2000, then was remounted for Toronto's Tarragon Theatre in 2001. Photo by Cylla Von Tiedemann. L to R: Pierre Brault, Kristen van Ginhoven, Susan Coyne, Lisa Norton, David Jansen) "Our focus has always been on Canadian works and Canadian playwrights. But where the NAC defined itself as a national institution, the GCTC has always been of the community. It's always had a national recognition, a national importance, but it is very firmly rooted in the community. We are one of the largest employers of artists in this region. Seventy percent of our contracts go to Ottawa based stage managers, actors, technicians. "One of our dreams for GCTC is to make the Irving Greenberg Theatre Centre a hub for the artistic community, the theatre community and also the community at large, " muses Johnson. To complement the picture, the theatre's second floor lobby has become an art gallery, a partnership with Ottawa's Cube Gallery to showcase the work of local visual artists that will create a dialogue between the visual arts and the performing arts. To shore up that goal, the board has brought back the popular Acoustic Waves series, a program that focused on Canadian musicians in the acoustic realm, that had been cut in 2002. "People had such passion for that series," says Johnson.
Along with a two-year production mentorship program that will see independent companies in Ottawa having access to the Centre's studio theatre for shows while being mentored in production management, marketing, dramaturgy, direction or grant money, the GCTC also maintains its own Playmakers' Society, where local artists create solo shows with mentors, leading to a showcase in the Studio Theatre. "The other thing that this building does for people," says Johnson, "is that our Studio Theatre and our Mainstage theatre are both available now for other companies to come and produce. It was on that basis that the city of Ottawa was so enthusiastic about this project because there is real dirth of performing arts space." It has a familiar ring, I say out loud, bemoaning the absence of alternative and transfer space that even major theatrical centres like Toronto have felt.
(Production shot from the 2007 GCTC production of The Man from the Capital. Photo by Paul Toogood. ) "Downtown is not one of the most interesting places in Ottawa," says Johnson candidly. "What people miss then they say that Ottawa isn't vibrant, are the neighborhoods: Edinburgh, New Edinburgh, Sandy Hill, The Glebe, Hintenburg, Westboro, Little Italy, Chinatown. Ottawa is all about the neighborhoods! Hintenburg, which is on the verge of Westboro and the larger Wellington West District, is a neighhborhood that has completely transformed in the last 15 years, " claims Johnson. " We're one of the reasons why that push to see it as an arts district has happened. But it's not just about the GCTC. It's about all the small galleries that are here, the Ottawa School of Speech and Drama, and the Opheus Music Society. "It's got these fantastic commercial districts with great restaurants and cafes and boutiques, and really vibrant, functioning pedestrian strips, things that you don't get when you stay at the Chateau Laurier and all you see is downtown." says Johnson. We don't need to be downtown, where we need to be is here. People will come from Rockcliffe, and they'll come from Manor Park and they'll come from all the other communities. The GCTC has survived because of its connections to the community, and it has survived because people see it as their own."
"There are two things that have really identified the company over the years: one is our commitment to contemporary Canadian stories, the other is the company's examination of, and interest in, social justice issues. It's always been about stories, never really about theatrical experimentation." With its considerable roster of 210 plays produced from 1975 to 2007, over 60 of which were premieres, the GCTC play list reads like a who's who in Canadian playwriting. "The company was founded on great stories and great narrative," says Johnson. " No Great Mischief (the GCTC's own adaptation of the Allistair MacCleod novel ) was our greatest selling piece but we've also presented artists like Ronnie Burkett, Cathy Jones, Daniel McIvor, Joan McLeod,and Carol Bolt. George F. Walker had a second home here. Most of the great Canadian playwrights have had their work done here. " To celebrate their inaugural season in the new theatre, Johnson has put together a series of shows under the banner of Capital Letters, all of which have some connection to Ottawa. Capital Letters began in October, 2007 with The Man from the Capital, a musical based on Gogol's comedy The Government Inspector, which lampooned the foibles of a corrupt municipal government, then finished the 2007 season with the series' second production The Real McCoy, a hit production from Toronto's Factory Theatre, written by by Ottawa native Andrew Moodie, who happened to get his first job as an actor for the GCTC.
The Centre has begun to take on a life of its own as I leave the building and head toward the car aiming to drive along Wellington Street as far as I can and drink in the last dregs of Autumn. Approaching the delightful community of Westboro, I wonder why I never came across it before. Years of visiting Ottawa, savoring the Bytown market and the city's great museums and galleries, coasting along Riverside Drive, there really is a lot of excitement beyond the tourist attractions. Johnson had talked about a chapter in Andrew Cohen's book, The Unfinished Canadian. "He wrote this book on Ottawa and said it was cold, hadn't had a big idea in years, that it was conservative and that the downtown strip was a nightmare. The response was 'You're looking at ther wrong Ottawa. You've got to go into the communities - that's where it's happening." -30- Community Spirit: The Great Canadian Theatre Company is the third in a series of articles about new theatre spaces in Ontario which has included The Young Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto (April, 2006) and The Rose Theatre in Brampton (November 2006).
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It's a dappled Sunday afternoon in the Capital City, a perfect kind of autumn day filled with the lush earthy colors of fall, a day when Ottawans go out for brunch in their neighborhood bistros or pick up a quiche at Thyme and Again, one of the trendy lunch spots and catering companies in the city. Thyme and Again, nestled in the heart of Wellington St. West, an middle class area known as Hintonburg, caters snacks and light meals in the lobby of the newly opened Irving Greenberg Theatre centre, which is, not surprisingly, just down the street. 
The Centre's shiny bar and café are Manhattan style snazzy, the exterior of the theatre has a touch of big city glamour with its neon signage and imposing marquee. But though the centre's resident theatre company, The Great Canadian Theatre Company, affectionately called the GCTC since its inception back in 1975, opened with fanfare this past October under the helm of its attractive Artistic Director, Lise Ann Johnson, GCTC's community oriented patrons are a long way from the detached audiences of big city theatres. 
GCTC's late space on Gladstone Ave. a former truck repair garage which was the company's home since 1982, was located in a gray looking non-definitive area of the city where the theatre itself stood out as the most lively - and colorful - object around. The building was cramped and old, lack of space prevented sets being built anywhere else except on the stage where the production itself would take place, and no visiting company was able to use the facility except for a few weeks at the end of GCTC's season. "Even though it was painted bright blue," recalls Johnson, "there were people who would come in who never knew it was a theatre."
With its large energy absorbing solar panel that runs up the side of the condo tower used in the heating and cooling system, a cistern that collects rain water, and high efficiency thermal glass panels with ceramic beads that act as a "shadowing agent" during the summer, what Windmill partner Jonathan Westeinde calls an "energy-efficient building envelope", the GCTC is in good hands. 
"I think GCTC has always been important to the community," stresses Johnson." In the ecology of Ottawa theatre, we have a regional role to play whereas the National Arts Centre has a national role to play..jpg)
On the theatrical side, the Irving Greenberg Theatre Centre has also welcomed the six-year-old experimental Third Wall Theatre Company to set up shop in the studio theatre. "They've found a niche in terms of classic work and interpretations of classic work that isn't being done in this community," explains Johnson. "What they need now is a permanent space, a continuity of venue in order to go on to the next level." 
But while central Toronto's larger and mid-size theatres are located mainly in the downtown core with the odd one in the periphery, the GCTC has never considered Ottawa's downtown a viable venue for its base.
Founded by a group of Carleton professors and graduate students in the '70's, the GCTC, explains Johnson "was a very left leaning company. They did shows in union halls and advocated a particular point of view which evolved over the last 33 years into an interest in debate and political discussion. 
Others on the 2008 playbill include The Optimists by former Governor General Award nominee and Ottawan Morwyn Brebner, the World Premiere of 5 O'Clock Bells, written and performed by Ottawa native Pierre Brault about the life and death of one of Canada's unsung musical heroes, Lenny Breau; and Michael Healey's comedy Plan B about Federal government representatives in the throes of a scandal. 
