Advertisement 1

Petrolia playhouse rewarding charitable theatre goers

Petrolia's esteemed Victoria Playhouse will give away 400 tickets to charitable theatre-goers this year as part of a good-faith promotion.

Article content

Petrolia’s Victoria Playhouse is giving away 400 tickets to patrons who make a donation to a charity.

Advertisement 2
Story continues below
Article content

Until the curtain falls Oct. 27 on the 2019 season, or until all pay-it-forward tickets are gone, patrons who make and report a $50 donation to a charity of their choice will receive a free ticket from the playhouse. Making a charitable donation is more expensive than buying a $42 ticket but the theatre is confident people will take it up on the offer.

“We have done other charitable things in the past,” said Callandra Dendias, the theatre’s program co-ordinator . “We did a big Fort McMurray fire fundraiser when we donated all the profits from one performance; we’ve done a lot with the London Health Sciences Centre, with women’s health. This year we did something different.”

Article content

Still available are tickets to four shows: the current show Murder for Two, August’s The New Canadian Curling Club, September’s Hogan’s Hoedown, and October’s Dracula: A Chamber Musical.  Those tickets are subsidized by the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp.

Advertisement 3
Story continues below
Article content

Other grant money, some $200,000 from the province announced earlier this year, will go toward expanding show runs, production budget, and marketing outreach across Southwestern Ontario. The theatre has not committed to repeating the charity initiative next year, but staff say they hope attracting a wider audience in 2019 will pay dividends in the future.

Many patrons to the Victoria Playhouse are return customers, said Josh Clubb, in charge of audience development with the theatre.

“We do have a broad reach and we’re fortunate enough to be able to grow it,” he said. “The (provincially funded) Celebrate Ontario grants are letting us grow things in ways we haven’t been able to try before.”

The bottom line: ticket sales broke records for the rural playhouse in 2018 and will almost assuredly break those records again in 2019. To date more than 30,000 tickets have been sold this year, roughly 85 per cent of last year’s haul — with half a season remaining.

Some of that is due to expanded marketing. The rest of the grant money will go to enhancing the performances themselves, in the hopes out-of-town visitors will return for more.

“For Hogan’s Hoedown we were able to hire a dance ensemble to be part of the show whereas otherwise we wouldn’t have had the funds in the budget for six extra people,” Dendias said.

Charity-driven tickets are available over the phone by calling the playhouse box office at 1-800-717-7694. The ticket promotion is not available online.

lpin@postmedia.coms

Article content
Comments
You must be logged in to join the discussion or read more comments.
Join the Conversation

Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion. Please keep comments relevant and respectful. Comments may take up to an hour to appear on the site. You will receive an email if there is a reply to your comment, an update to a thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information.

Latest National Stories
    News Near Tillsonburg
      This Week in Flyers