Perth’s Classic Theatre Festival (CTF), the only professional summer theatre company in the Ottawa Valley, has launched a new program to provide accessibility to the economically disadvantaged.

While the Festival’s move to a new venue, the Mason Theatre (located at 13 Victoria Street), was made in large part due to its wheelchair accessibility, the Festival’s new initiative is designed to provide another kind of accessibility: free seats for those who could otherwise not afford to attend.

The “Save-a-Seat” campaign, Artistic Producer Laurel Smith says, “is designed to make accessible the thrilling experience of top-notch professional theatre to those people in Perth and Lanark County who, marginalized economically, are simply unable to attend. Study after study shows how the arts are part of a healthy childhood, and enliven the otherwise difficult lives many adults struggle with when living below the poverty line as well.

“We think it’s great that there are students in this area who will travel to the Stratford Festival each fall for that wonderful experience, but we recognize there are many in the area who are simply unable to afford that expense. What we propose is to make accessible to those children, and their parents, the experience of theatre artists who normally work at such prestigious stages as Stratford and Shaw right here in Perth.”

A recent grant from the Perth & District Community Foundation has helped lay the cornerstone of the Save-a-Seat campaign, and the Festival is now soliciting tax-deductible donations from those who would like to contribute a series of subsidized seats to the campaign.

“If anyone deserves an evening at the theatre, a chance to get swept away in a story if only for a few hours, it is those hard working people in our community who are struggling to make ends meet,” says CTF board member Joan Frommer. “I am so pleased to have been asked to chair this initiative - it makes our Festival truly accessible to all.”

The Save-a-Seat program, while grounded in the Festival’s goal of giving back to its home community – over $7,000 was donated to local organizations during the Festival’s inaugural season – was in part inspired by a letter to the Perth Courier in November, 2009, written by Sue Cavanagh, on behalf of Lanark County Child and Youth Poverty Action Network. The letter discussed in poignant detail the opportunities missed by 12% of children in Lanark County who cannot go to birthday parties, attend after school activities, have a pet, enjoy the arts, and, on a more direct level, miss out on one or more meals in a day. The expansion of Perth’s Food Bank, as well as reports on poverty in the region, indicate that it remains a persistent problem for the near future.

The Festival’s parent organization, Burning Passions Theatre, has long worked with marginalized youth, and has attempted through new work development, workshops, and other media to create spaces for the often neglected voices of women, children, and those at the edge of our society. Festival Artistic Producer Laurel Smith is also a founder of the award-winning St. Clare’s Multifaith Housing Society, an innovative project that provdes hundreds of units of affordable housing while working on new construction as well.

The Festival’s 2011 summer season will feature the bewitching romantic comedy "Bell, Book and Candle," July 8-31, and "The Fourposter," a comedic chronicle of a marriage, August 5-28. Early bird tickets offering a 10% discount are currently on sale.

Individuals who would like to make a tax-deductible donation to the Save-a-Seat Campaign, can contact the Festival at info@classictheatre.ca or at 1-877-283-1283 ext. 3. The Festival welcomes inquiries from any Lanark County social service agencies who have clients who would like to benefit from the Save-a-Seat Campaign.

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This event has been financially assisted by the Ontario Cultural
Attractions Fund, a program of the Government of Ontario through the
Ministry of Tourism and Culture, administered by the Ontario Cultural
Attractions Fund Corporation.