Dear Editor,
Re: “Gateway Theatre’s Chinese outreach gets funding boost,” News, Dec. 24.
In regards to your article on Dec. 24, regarding funding for Gateway Theatre, I would like to clarify that the funding we have received is to connect with ALL our audiences, both English-speaking and Chinese-speaking. We fear that some comments made in the story may leave the wrong impression.
* Gateway’s English-speaking audience is not declining, as the article suggests. In fact, our 2015/2016 productions (in English and in Cantonese) attracted the largest audiences at Gateway for several years.
* The same sentence goes on to say that there is “a gap in filling the seats with new Chinese-speaking patrons,” suggesting that we hope to replace our current, mostly English-speaking, audience with a Chinese-speaking audience. Nothing could be further from the truth. Gateway aims to bring as many Richmond residents to theatre as possible to share our love of the performing arts; we are not trying to substitute one audience with another.
Gateway’s long-term plans are to grow both our English and Chinese-speaking audiences with distinct programming in each language. This funding from the city is to help us do that, using market research and community consultation expertise so we can best serve Richmond’s dedicated theatre-goers and continue to produce theatre that gains Richmond national attention.
I look forward to sharing more news on the latter in the near future.
Jovanni Sy
Artistic director, Gateway Theatre
