After two decades of running the Metro Studio, a small venue in the southwest corner of the Victoria Conservatory of Music that has provided a performance space for independent theatre initiatives since 2005, Intrepid Theatre will soon be closing its doors.
Confronted by a large rent increase, the organization has made the decision to not renew their lease next year.
“The financial situation of a rent increase just really made the financial realities of operating Metro untenable for the future of the company,” says Intrepid Theatre artistic director Sean Guist. “We’re sad to lose our home that we’ve been at for 20 years, and we’re trying to look at what could be possible in our next steps, whether that is a new space somewhere or a partnership on a new space.”
Guist says that the closure of the Metro Studio doesn’t mean Intrepid Theatre is closing down, and they will continue to provide the community with independent theatre initiatives at their Fisgard location, and at the Metro until next spring.
“We’re still at our Blanshard space on Fisgard, which is our 45-seat studio and our office space there, so we’re still present and active downtown,” he says. “We’re also still at the Metro with programming through next February, so we’re open to what the future could be; we’re just not sure what that looks like.”
For the last two decades, Intrepid Theatre has utilized the Metro to produce their own theatrical events as well as to rent the space to community theatre initiatives. Guist says that the decision to close it down was made in order to preserve independent theatre in Victoria, since maintaining the space would be a financial drain on Intrepid that may have jeopardized the company’s financial viability.
“Especially with the large rent increase that was coming, the numbers just didn’t work,” Guist says. “We really needed to take care of Intrepid Theatre as a company, and our own programming, which we need to preserve and deliver, so that’s why we made the difficult decision to wrap up next spring. We didn’t want to sacrifice that by running a venue with a huge loss, because it really would start to cut into what it is that we can do for artists, and for our festivals, and for the community.”
Guist reassures theatre patrons that while the closure of a decades-long icon of independent theatre may seem dire, it is merely a strategic logistical decision made to ensure the future of local independent theatre.
“We’re not going anywhere, just closing the Metro,” he says. “We really are focused on preserving the financial realities to continue to bring three festivals a year and remarkable work all season long to the city, so that’s what we’re going to keep doing; we’re just going to look a little bit different.”