Company

Mandate

To collaboratively create new theatrical works that tell inclusive stories with comedy and play at the core.

Mission

Common Boots Theatre creates original and collaborative theatre for traditional and non-traditional theatrical spaces. We tell diverse and inclusive stories through comedy, physicality, and play. Our goal is to make theatre accessible for artists and audiences starting with the rehearsal and creation process through to closing night.

Values

From its inception, Common Boots has always tried to push back against the conventions of the times and lead the way forward by example. At the beginning, under the leadership of Leah Cherniak and Martha Ross in the 1980s, this meant providing meaningful art from womens’ perspectives, expanding the possibilities of women in comedy, and providing work and training opportunities for women who wanted to work professionally in theatre. Later, Common Boots redefined where theatre could take place with large-scale outdoor winter productions, and then explorations of private life in the public sphere. With Jennifer Brewin and Alex Bulmer, Common Boots started to explore pushing boundaries of theatre with a disability lens, redefining audio-led theatre and accessible dramaturgy. All along the way, there have been constant elements: Comedy, Collaboration, and Care.

Comedy, broadly speaking, is more than just being funny. It also means a sense of play, a curiosity to explore, and the daring to fail. With the creation of new works, some of which are now cherished classics in the Canadian theatre canon, we’ve explored new themes, dismantled tired tropes, and sought new expressions. We continue to find new playful ways to engage our audiences, make them think differently about the world, and reveal what is funny about the human condition in the present world.

Collaboration has always been at the heart of the way we create. Whether it’s a collective creation, researching democratic elections processes, or inviting community choirs to sing in our shows, we have always sought a multitude of opinions and participation. This continues to be a cornerstone of how we operate, and affects the way we program and put our shows together. We are constantly seeking opportunities to include more input and to reveal new perspectives. We are committed to working closely with our artists to be true to our stories together in order to share them with our audiences, who are also part of this collaboration.

Collaboration has always been at the heart of the way we create. Whether it’s a collective creation, researching democratic elections processes, or inviting community choirs to sing in our shows, we have always sought a multitude of opinions and participation. This continues to be a cornerstone of how we operate, and affects the way we program and put our shows together. We are constantly seeking opportunities to include more input and to reveal new perspectives. We are committed to working closely with our artists to be true to our stories together in order to share them with our audiences, who are also part of this collaboration.

Care is central to the way we operate and treat each other. This includes making sure that the actors in our outdoor winter shows have adequate layers to remain safe in subzero temperatures. It also includes the way we uplifted women artists by providing mentorship opportunities and growth opportunities. It also underlines how seriously we are approaching our efforts for Inclusion, and making our company a welcoming home for artists with disabilities and beyond. This is a philosophy that we continue to practice and adapt for other forms of Inclusion, extending that concern to everyone we interact with from artists to audiences.

Priorities

As we’ve been working, we have identified three priority areas that we are making active efforts to build skills and competencies around: Diversity, Community, and Environment.
 
Diversity to us means celebrating a broad spectrum of identities and intersections, including: ethno-cultural diversity, age, socioeconomic status, d/Deaf, Blind, Disability, language, sexuality and gender, immigration status, and beyond. It is important for us to create theatre that is welcoming to and that represents a broad range of our audiences and the society we live in. We have taken on the 50-30 Challenge, and we make conscious decisions about representation when hiring staff and artists based on a wide range of criteria, including skill, giving opportunities to grow, and how our work might benefit individuals and communities.
 
Community includes how we interface with the social fabric around us, how we engage with audiences, and how we respond to present concerns. We serve many different communities, from artists, to audiences, to neighbourhoods, and we seek to embed ourselves as a vital element in both the live performance ecology and the physical neighbourhoods where we base our work. We are presently learning about and responding to Toronto’s downtown east area (roughly bordered by Bloor, Yonge, Queen, and River Streets), focusing our activity around Allan Gardens. As such, we maintain active partnerships with local businesses, the Cabbagetown BIA, Friends of Allan Gardens, and other non-profit and community groups in the area.
 
The Environment is of great importance to us as well, and we are researching and implementing ways to make our philosophy and operations more sustainable. This includes becoming members of the Canadian Green Alliance, the organisations we partner with, as well as in programming choices. We strive to make our productions eco-responsible, prioritising the use of recycled and borrowed materials for sets, props and costumes, as well as utilising found and underutilized spaces for our activities. We are also establishing a core repertoire of light- or no-footprint productions that can have long lives beyond their premieres, and these productions are naturally themed around climate crisis, responsibility for the natural world, and celebrating an eco-conscious aesthetic.

Common Boots Theatre is a member of Professional Association of Canadian Theatres (PACT), and the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts (TAPA).