NFLT in "Dire Straits"

Jeff Green | Nov 15, 2019

The long-standing relationship between the Limestone District School Board and the Sharbot Lake based North Frontenac Little Theatre company may be coming to an end.

A delegation from North Frontenac Little Theatre painted a rather bleak picture at Central Frontenac Council Tuesday night.

“We are in dire straits after 40 years,” said former NFLT President Brian Robertson

Robertson said they were asking the Township to advocate for them with the LDSB. He said the “original agreement between the theatre company and the board ensured free use of the school for rehearsals and performances.

The Little Theatre has been mounting their productions at either Sharbot Lake High School or Granite Ridge Education Centre since the company’s first started up 40 years ago. The relationship was a natural since many of the Little Theatre actors, directors and executive members over that time have been students, active or retired teachers, and school administrators from the Frontenac Board (until 1998) and the Limestone Board since then. Both Robertson and current NFLT President Pam Giroux were teachers with the board at one time.

In 2005 the Little Theatre received a $28,000 Trillium grant earmarked towards the purchase of a lighting system, which was installed in the cafetorium of Sharbot Lake High School for the use of the theatre company and the school as well. Those lights were re-located to the cafetorium at Granite Ridge when it opened in 2014.

When Granite Ridge was being constructed, Limestone Board officials made particular note of the relationship between the board and the Little Theatre when talking about the commitment the board was making to its relationship with the community. The new school was promoted as a community asset.

Mayor Frances Smith was on Council then and she hasn’t forgotten.

“If memory serves, it was something like $50,000 in building permits that we waived,” Smith said. “I guess they’ve (LDSB) forgotten what it took to make it a community school in the first place.

“They’re using money as an argument and forgetting the agreement.”

Smith said the Township will probably have to start charging the school board to have its cistern filled.

“If they want to play hardball, I guess we may have to play hardball too,” she said.

The Limestone Board (LDSB), and the Ministry of Education as well, continue to say they are committed to community use of schools.

The following is taken from the LDSB website: “community Use of Schools is an initiative between the Board and the Ministry of Education that supports access to school space outside of school hours for not-for-profit community groups. The Community Use of Schools initiative has eliminated fees for many not-for-profit youth groups and greatly reduced fees for other groups as well. Please contact the Community Use of Schools office to learn more about short-term availability of schools.”

Jane Douglas, communications director for LDSB, explained that while the board does not collect fees from groups such as North Frontenac Little Theatre, they need to recover costs that are related to the use of schools such as Granite Ridge when the school would not otherwise be open.

“We informed the Little Theatre in the spring of this year, that we will have to recover costs associated with their use of Granite Ridge. They are still subsidised, but with changes in the funding of our board in recent years, we can no longer cover the janitorial service costs when the school would otherwise be closed,” Douglas said, in a telephone interview on Monday from the board office in Kingston.

Because the Little Theatre rehearses in the school twice a week for six weeks before a production, and then uses up to four rooms during the run of the plays themselves, the fee of $88 per week during rehearsal periods and about $100 per night during the run of the play, will add as much as $1,200 to the cost of putting on the upcoming production of A Christmas Story next month.

“This show was already an expensive one for us to put on because of he cost of royalties and scripts, etc. and adding $1,200 makes it hard for us to break even,” Giroux told the News.

“We’d like you to ask the LDSB to reconsider and exempt us from fees as this was the original agreement,” Brian Robertson told Central Frontenac Council.

Robertson suggested that the NFLT might be added to the township roster of organizations under the Recreation Committee banner but Smith said that the badminton club and the Winter Festival Talent Show are already under the rec committee heading and are “subject to the same fees so that doesn’t get you anywhere.”

Council did seem amenable to suggestions that the theatre group take up semi-permanent residency at Oso Hall, as long as it remembers that the hall is also used for a variety of other things such as courts, council meetings, weddings, dances and meetings.

Robertson said there really isn’t anything comparable to the GREC stage in the area but Oso Hall could easily be made to work.

“We would bring some things to the table,” Robertson said. “The lights at GREC are ours but we have some audience seating risers and we could renovate the stage.”

“We need to do some work on the ceiling here (in Oso Hall),” said Smith. “So when the ceiling comes down, the lights could go up.”