Canadian Heritage Committee on June 2nd, 2026

[S.E. Grummett]

Yes. I like that as a first name.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon South, SK]

Congratulations: At university in 2016, you earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts honours degree.

Was Henry Woolf involved?

[S.E. Grummett]

No, he was gone by then.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon South, SK]

He was.

Talk about the city of Saskatoon. I'm from there. You've been there. It's a unique city for arts.

[S.E. Grummett]

It is.

It's the big city in a.... It's the central hub. Artists from all over the province end up there, which is quite a unique space. It's not quite Edmonton or Winnipeg in terms of an arts scene.

My mentor, Yvette Nolan, calls artists from there theatre rats. We do a bit of everything. You're doing a little stage design. You're doing a little directing and writing. Certainly my bachelor's degree was that. We would put on plays at lunch with our friends.

I feel that my performance practice, which is now international, is still that. It's getting in a room with friends and putting on shows.

I think Saskatoon has a really hard time being able to pay folks proper wages in the arts. A lot of the time, you're doing a profit share, so you're having to rely on ticket sales. Even then, I've done shows there and, at the end of them, you've been working for months and months, and you make $200. That's certainly the indie scene.

Then you have more established theatres, such as Persephone Theatre and Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan, which is our summer Shakespeare festival. I find that, right now, those institutions are programming a lot of what I would say are safe bets, with things that are known IP or a Disney sort of musical. Those institutions aren't working with local playwrights. They're not working with local artists to create something new.

Persephone in particular—pre-pandemic, anyways—cut its entire back, deep-end series. It was not its mainstage 400-seater, but a 90-seater where a lot of young emerging playwrights and even actors would come out. They would do smaller-scale, newer Canadian work.

I had to turn to the fringe festival circuit to start making and honing my own voice, as well as the indie theatre scene, Live Five. That's where those profit shares come from, when you can't pay yourself. Most artists there will have to juggle two day jobs, even though the rents aren't like they are in Toronto or Vancouver.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon South, SK]

That's one of the questions I had for you.

Are you making a living today, or do you have a second job?

[S.E. Grummett]

I am making a living.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon South, SK]

Okay.

[S.E. Grummett]

I do this full-time.

I think it's because I left. I think it's because I tour. There wasn't enough work for me there to work only in Saskatoon and Saskatchewan.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon South, SK]

I agree with you.

I've been down to the Fringe Festival lots on Broadway, but it's not the same now. I don't know if COVID changed everything, but it's struggling.

You're lucky. You worked very hard, and you were rewarded.

What kind of advice would you give those following you? When we look at your résumé, you check a lot of the boxes.

[S.E. Grummett]

I think the real success we've had is because of being able to access funding.

The Canadian fringe circuit is very different from Edinburgh, for example

The Canadian fringe circuit is all lottery-based. You'll put your name in a hat and, if you're drawn, you get an opportunity to do a show. What's great is the access; the barrier to entry is much lower. You pay something like $700. You get your venue, technician, seven performances and registration in the festival. Oftentimes these festivals will house you as well.

You have this gaggle of artists that will go from city to city throughout a summer touring a show. That's what I came up in. I was doing that for a few summers.

With Edinburgh, on the other hand, the joke is that you could sell out your whole season, and we did. If we hadn't had funding, we would have lost $10,000. It is so expensive to do. The barrier to entry, to be seen on those international stages, is high.

I agree about the Saskatoon Fringe Festival. I worked for them in their first summer back after COVID, and it was a struggle. It is a struggle.

I think artists—on that circuit, anyway—will often just do the fringe festival in the summer. Some were full professional artists throughout the full year. There's no bridge between those fringe festivals and professional mainstage shows, particularly in the pay and prices.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon South, SK]

Let me ask you this, because I'm running out of time: What was the application process when you got an $11,000 grant from Canadian Heritage? I think that's what we all want to hear. What was that process about?

[S.E. Grummett]

For me, the questions on those applications are very different from those when applying for something from the Canada Council for the Arts, where you're speaking to a jury of peers. I've gotten this advice from program officers there. You just want to nerd out about the thing you want to make. Canadian Heritage is a lot more about corporate speak, which I am not used to, as an indie artist. I think I benefited from a funding organization in Saskatchewan called Creative Saskatchewan, which was a huge stepping stone for me because it allows us to apply for things like marketing costs, which are so important in these big festivals.

Those applications are a bit of a barrier. I'm somebody who's very good at math, at doing a budget and at knowing how to talk to those forms because of Creative Sask. I don't know whether other artists would be able to answer effectively and get that funding.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon South, SK]

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Rachael Thomas]

I'm sorry. That's time. Thank you very much.

We're going over to MP Hirtle for five minutes.

[Alana Hirtle, Liberal, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I really wish I could take you all out for a beer afterwards. This is so cool. This is so amazing.

We'll go to Mr. Myette.

You mentioned youth programming in your statement. I wonder if you could expand a bit on what kind of youth programming happens at the Marigold.

[André Myette]

There are several organizations that operate out of the Marigold with youth programming built into their infrastructure.

Hubtown Theatre is one. They have a youth players group. We also host a spotlight theatre every year, at which kids audition for a play. They get to come in, learn every step of the way and put on a production at the end of it. There's another theatre camp we do throughout the summer months. Summer is a harder sell for tickets in our area. Usually, the weather's nice, so people like to get out and do stuff. This gives us a way to offer something to the community while offering students and kids something to do during the summer months.

[Alana Hirtle, Liberal, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

That's amazing. Thank you.

I'm from the same town, just so you know. I've been in the Marigold many times when there was an event in the theatre, a rehearsal in the workshop and something else happening in the boardroom. Obviously, there's demand for space there.

What would you say are the most significant barriers facing artists and community organizations seeking access to affordable rental studio performance spaces?

[André Myette]

It's cost. Everything is very expensive. Our building is an older building. It was originally a movie theatre many years ago, and it was then converted into a performing arts centre. Look at what it costs just to fix the heating system. We've gone through that quite a bit this past year, as well as during the winter. It seems as if every time we think we have a handle on it, something else happens. As far as keeping those costs as low as we can, on top of all the other things....

When it comes to the performing part of it—the acts we get in—we walk an interesting line. We're trying to provide theatre for our community in an affordable way, but we also want to bring them cool acts that appeal to many different multicultural groups. To find a way to do that—to charge a low ticket price so people can get out, and to afford those acts....

The most significant barriers, I would say, are fees. We're trying to pay artists what they're worth but also keep the ticket prices low enough that our community can afford to come out and enjoy a night of culture.

[Alana Hirtle, Liberal, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Thank you for that.

As a rough guess, how many days would you say the theatre is dark in the run of a year?

[André Myette]

Oh, it's not that many, thankfully, because we do a lot of community stuff. We have theatre groups, and we offer them free space to rehearse. They rent the theatre for when they do performances, but they get free space to rehearse. We have all the different classes, rehearsal spaces and boardrooms. As a rental space, we have a lot of organizations using us for AGMs, community events, awards and stuff with the business community.

Thankfully, it's not very many. I would say that there might not be anybody in there once or twice a week. It's rare, which is nice.

[Alana Hirtle, Liberal, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

I would agree. There's always something happening at the Marigold.

Extrapolating from that, how large an impact would you say events happening at the Marigold have on economic development and tourism in northern Nova Scotia?

[André Myette]

I would say that it's quite significant.

We're in Truro. We're not in Halifax, but we are doing our best to try to offer our people some of the acts and performances they would get there a lot more easily. Because of that, I'm trying to bring in lots of acts that would bring lots of folks to our area outside of the normal realm.

I'm also working on trying to make our venue more of a festival space as well. There are a lot of things I haven't cleared with my board yet, so I don't want to list off all my plans. There was a very significant blues festival in Truro that went away, and I'd like to see it come back. There are also other convention-type things that go on in the nerd community. I'd like to help bring out stuff like that too.

[Alana Hirtle, Liberal, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

The nerd community....

[André Myette]

Yes, I'm a very proud member of that.