After years as a construction project and a fundraising goal, the Dekker Centre for the performing arts is finally here. A weekend-long grand opening celebration, attracting everything from local highland dancers to the Saskatoon Symphony and using every aspect of the facility from the kitchen to the green room to the theatre itself served as its grand opening. That weekend was followed by the BBEX awards, and an event calendar that is quickly filling up with a wide variety of events.
Yes, the Dekker Centre is here in the community. And between organizing volunteers, booking future events and even occasionally manning the bar during performance intermissions, Moe McGuinty is a busy man.
I caught up with Moe after the theatre's big opening weekend to discuss the future of the theatre and learn a bit about him as a person.
Foremost on many people's minds is the question of how the Dekker Centre will fit into the broader community and how it will relate to theatres in Saskatoon, Prince Albert or Lloydminster. On this subject, McGuinty was clear.
"Once the Battlefords are known to have a theatre, then we will be offered acts that are touring the country. Quite often, an act that would have played in Saskatoon last night would be here tonight, or an act that was in Edmonton last night will be here tonight. And that's the way you can get an act that you couldn't afford otherwise."
In the future, McGuinty hopes that the reputation of the Dekker Centre, along with the reputation of the community as a whole, will come to precede it. McGuinty, who himself toured for years as a musician, speaks from personal experience when he says that the theatre is well equipped "behind-the-scenes."
"There's a whole behind the scenes things that has to do with our technical capabilities, and the professional abilities of our technical staff and the hospitality offered by the management of the Center, and certainly the hospitality offered to them by the entire community."
This all matters, of course, because the world of touring musicians is a small one, and word spreads quickly. A favourable review from a highly-regarded touring musician could mean more acts, a cheaper price or more enthusiastic musicians.
Though it has only had a few events in its first month, all reports seem to suggest that the theatre is looked upon very favourably by the musical community. McGuinty remarked that many of the first professional musicians to come through the centre described its acoustics as "the equivalent of anything they'd seen in the country." The centre was, similarly, described as "warm and inviting."
In terms of the local community, the theatre has already organized a variety of performances with local organizations and will likely organize more in the future. McGuinty cautions, however, that this is not the theatre's primary purpose, and local groups should not assume that they will be able to get the theatre for their own purposes. The theatre is, of course, ultimately a business.
When asked about what it will take for the theatre to succeed, McGuinty is hopeful and ambitious. Though some might worry about aspects of the facility, such as its limited seating, the McGuinty's go-to adjective when describing the Dekker Centre is "staggering." Noting that the kitchens had fed over 1,000 people in six days and that even so seasoned Colin James had complimented the theatre's acoustics, McGuinty challenged Battlefords residents to change their thinking about what the theatre can and should be. He worried about the number of people in the community that only want the theatre to be good enough, and who worry only about how to keep people in the community.
"But what happens if we change the question? What can we do here that would be at a level of sophistication and consumer demand to make the 270,000 people of Saskatoon come here? And all of a sudden, if you start thinking like that, maybe we can figure it out. So that's a challenge, not just for the Dekker Centre, but for the Battlefords. If you always ask the same questions, you always get the same answers. If you change the question, who knows what'll happen?"
"Let's do it, let's change the question."
McGuinty is also adamant that the theatre's cost is justified. He describes how he set rates, by comparing the theatre to others in Canada, comparing the number of seats, the size of the communities and even the per capita income. He hopes that, whatever the City of North Battleford's contribution to the operation of the theatre at the end of this year, residents think that the cost is worth it.
"Now it might be worth it because they saw their granddaughter dance in here, or it might be worth it because they saw the symphony and had tears in their eyes, it might be worth it because they're a hard-assed businessman because they booked 700 hotel rooms they wouldn't have booked."
In line with his optimism about the theatre's future, McGuinty is all positives about his newly adopted community. He and his wife expressed shock at the waving that he saw in the streets and at the warm, unpretentious nature of Battlefordians, whether private citizens or businesspeople. And like many Ontarians, he was already used to lake culture. The lakes are just a little bit closer in Saskatchewan though.
McGuinty has already been giving back. His introduction to music, and the arts, came when he saw a performance of Cedric Smith, a Shakespearean actor with the Perth County Conspiracy at his school. Embracing music and acting, McGuinty would come to be decorated in both, and they would be his career for until he was thirty.
He has obviously not forgotten the value of that initial introduction to the world of the arts, and has tried to share that wonder with others. At the first of the gala performances, he told his volunteer ticket-takers that they would have to actually watch the performances as part of their job. Though they were initially skeptical about the "fancy music," they emerged from the first half enthralled with violins and resolving to attend the second.
