PTE ‘restructuring’ will include layoffs at season’s end

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A “restructuring” at Prairie Theatre Exchange will result in layoffs, reduced workloads and task amalgamation at the end of the company’s 2023-24 season, dramatically altering the company’s future internal operations.

“Due to financial hardship, PTE has made the difficult decision to restructure the workforce of the company,” Managing Director Lisa Li and artistic director Thomas Morgan Jones said in a written statement sent to the Free Press Wednesday.

“Seven positions are impacted by this restructure in a variety of ways, ranging from termination to reduced workload, to amalgamation of positions resulting in new hires.”

The staffing and programming during the remainder of the 2023-24 season at the downtown Winnipeg theatre is unaffected, Li and Jones say.

Citing people’s privacy, Li and Jones did not specify which of those seven positions would meet which fate, and would not confirm whether the affected employees were on the administrative or creative side.

However, several sources speaking on the condition of anonymity tell the Free Press five positions in the six-person production team are due to be terminated after this season. Those sources also indicated the one position that hadn’t been officially terminated was being maintained on a limited contract basis only.

In a Facebook post, one member of the production crew, who had been employed in that capacity since 2010, announced that he won’t hold his position once his contract expires in June, after which his job will be terminated. That position, the post indicated, would be rolled up into another called manager of technical production, facilities and rentals.

A job posting for the position can be found on PTE’s website, with a Feb. 19 application deadline and an April 29 start, at a salary ranging from $60,000 to $65,000.

In a section of the posting entitled “The current company,” the text reads that “PTE is in a time of transition.”

The transition has been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, PTE’s administration says, adding that other companies both locally and nationally are feeling the crunch.

A Nov. 6 newsletter stated that the company had experienced a loss of revenue in excess of $300,000, “which could exceed $500,000 in the 2024-25 season.”

“As we witness layoffs and closures of performing arts companies across the United States, Europe and now here in this country, we are in deep conversations about how to move forward in a way that is responsible, relevant and inspiring,” the company wrote at that time.

News of the staffing changes at PTE, which include members of the production team and administrative staff, circulated quickly through Winnipeg’s tight-knit theatre community, though not through the company’s official channels.

“I’m very saddened to find out through a Facebook post about these layoffs,” says Sharon Bajer, a local actor, director and former member of PTE’s Playwrights Unit whose next show, The Outside Inn, will première at PTE this spring.

“It makes me so upset to see a colleague have to make a post like that, and it also makes me worry about the health of the company.”

In their statement, Li and Jones say the company’s “goal and priority moving forward will continue to be offering artists a place to create and audiences with innovative and unique theatre experiences for many years to come.”

Founded in 1973, Prairie Theatre Exchange moved from Princess Street — where it began as the Manitoba Theatre Workshop – to its current home at Portage Place in 1990.

Currently in its 51st season, the company has so far this year hosted runs of plays written by Toronto’s Guillermo Verdecchia (Feast) and Marie-Beath Badian (The Waltz), and the improv show Bigger Dickens Energy from local troupe Outside Joke.

The company’s programming continues tonight with the preview of Winnipeg writer-director Hazel Venzon’s solo performance, Everything Has Disappeared.

ben.waldman@winnipegfreepress.com