Well, I received many, many passionate responses to my recent blog post "Who should lead the Canadian Stage Company?" I asked four questions. Here is a sampling of your answers. (UPDATE: We'll deal with the mandate question in a later post; this one is already much too long.)

1. Should Canadian Stage hire a new artistic producer? Or should they go back to the old structure of having a managing director and artistic director?

Most of the artists and subscribers who emailed in believe that the old structure worked better. Their reasoning is sound. Writes Ali Crosthwait, "Running a business takes time and energy away form the creative process. Separate the roles." And Kevin Shea adds, "Finding a strong artistic leader and a great theatrical entrepreneur in the same person seems impossible - finding one of each is at least plausible."

But Mike Grey, a lapsed subscriber, makes an important point: "I don't think the management structure is as important as the people who fill the roles."

It's true... God knows there are plenty of mediocre theatre companies around the world with both an artistic director and general manager, while there are some that thrive under artistic producers. What matters most, ultimately, is who is selected to lead.

Which leads us to...

3. Who would you like to see run CanStage? Impractical suggestions as welcome as practical ones.

In no particular order, you said:

Ross Manson, Ruth Madoc-Jones, David Ferry, Alisa Palmer, Morris Panych, Michael Healey and Marti Maraden ("if she isn't too jaded after her recent experience [at Stratford]").

Richard Rose, Daniel Brooks, Miles Potter, Mary Vingoe and Daniel MacIvor.

Anne-Marie MacDonald, Joe Zeigler, Diego Matamoros, Peter Hinton, Ted Dykstra, Ben Carlson, Atom Egoyan and Don Shipley.

Jackie Maxwell, Jennifer Tarver, Franco Boni, Sarah Stanley, Chris Abraham, Andrey Tarasiuk, Jason Byrne and Justin Trudeau.

Last, but not least: Garth Drabinksy.

Some of these people are talented directors or actors who would be terrible artistic directors, but there are some excellent suggestions in there. What I find interesting is that even though I said "impractical suggestions" were welcome, no one suggested anyone who is not Canadian - or even a Canadian who works outside the country.*

Are we really that inward-looking when it comes to theatre? Canadian opera companies, ballet companies, orchestras... They have no qualms about hiring the best talent from around the world. I understand that theatre is (largely) language-based and local, but things aren't nearly as parochial elsewhere in the world. The Old Vic in London is run by an American. The National Theatre of Scotland is run by an Englishwoman. A Canadian ran the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego for almost two decades.

I'm not saying there aren't many, many qualified Canadian candidates, but I'm a little disappointed that in the year 2008 we aren't even entertaining the idea of looking globally...

And, finally: Should they re-re-rebrand the name back to CanStage?

I'll throw this over to Mike Grey again: "Like you, I will continue to use CanStage regardless of what name the management is pushing."

Considering that NO ONE wrote me an email using the full name "Canadian Stage Company", I gather that bit of re-rebranding has been a complete flop. Certainly, it is symbolic of CanStage's identity crisis, which is perhaps the main issue and one we will talk about in another post.

Much more to come...

* UPDATE (corrected version): OK, Jason Byrne is Irish - he's the director who comes over to work with Company Theatre. So I did get a non-Canadian suggestion. (When I copied and pasted that name, I was imagining some hybrid artistic director that was half Shaw actor Fiona Byrne and half playwright Jason Sherman. Mea culpa.)

I've also been informed that Miles Potter and Joe Ziegler may technically be American, but I think my point, generally, still stands.