​This is not the finish line. The Québec Professional Theatre Roadmap is a stop along the way, a step back, and a snapshot of the sector’s current reflections, exchanges, issues, needs, solutions, and dreams; it is an inventory of every aspect of theatre arts in Québec. Society is undergoing profound transformations right now, and it is crucial that the theatre sector be able to keep evolving and that it remains vibrant and relevant across Québec. It is impossible to separate the art form from environmental issues and from the challenge of better demographic representation in companies, organizations, activities, and venues. 

 

Let’s be honest: these are challenging times. Social division is rampant. The climate crisis is alarming. The international political situation is worrisome. Sources of indignation are becoming increasingly stark, and we understand more clearly than ever that the systems we have created are flawed—that we must address and redress injustice and act together to bring about change. We must work for equity, inclusion, and reconciliation, as well as universal accessibility. Artists have always reflects social upheaval; art feeds our collective wisdom, holds our convictions to account, and allows us to look at the future with fresh and more open eyes. 

 

This Roadmap is intended as a tool to guide our practice, support developmental initiatives, inspire change, and share the tasks of these multiple shifts over the next ten years and across the entire community. If we want to succeed, we must all be involved. Let each one of us who has a voice spur on initiatives and reveal our blind spots. Our community contains multitudes; in sharing the Roadmap, we are appealing to that sense of belonging. This is a plan for how we can take control of the things we can change, and make our needs heard and our progress visible. Theatre is a collective art, and this document too is the result of extensive peer consultation and exchange. It is our responsibility to ensure that it is sustainable and sustained by renewing our audiences, maintaining our venues, nurturing a fertile relationship with the education sector, and becoming more firmly rooted across Québec. The theatre sector as a whole also has an immense responsibility in supporting artists, craftspeople, and cultural workers in the breadth of their everevolving professions and reaffirming their pivotal place in society. We owe it to ourselves to preserve the quality of life and mental health of those dedicated human beings, giving them the means to achieve high standards of quality, and supporting their work over time by preserving and promoting their vision and their approach.

​Theatre can educate, denounce, rouse passions, raise awareness, soothe, rally… It’s up to us to maintain its vitality, to hold space for the generations that have come before us and to tend to those that will come after, and where we have failed to amend with humility, courage, and determination. Let us prove together that theatre is imperishable, ardent, and decisive, and that its absence would be a shame and a loss.
 

The development of the Roadmap involved extensive consultation, and took some time. Four (co)chairs, dozens of Conseil québécois du théâtre (CQT) staff, several boards of directors, and over five years have gone into the creation of the many versions of this tool. This document remains a living entity, and it will evolve, adjust, and improve as actions are put in place and as the sector evolves.
 

The Roadmap is a choose-your-own-adventure. The order in which you read it, the passages you highlight, and the actions it inspires are up to you. You are in the best position to know your priorities, your expertise, and the projects you want to develop. We hope this document will help you take a stand, make choices, consider new possibilities, and take your own thinking further. Each one of you has an important role to play.
 

The Roadmap is not the finish line, but it is a milestone, just as the second “États généraux du théâtre professionnel” was in 2007. Nor is it intended to be an exercise in synthesis: rather, it reflects how vast our practices are in Québec. It is a map and a compass to guide the future of our community.
 

We hope you will enjoy reading the 2023–2033 Québec Professional Theatre Roadmap, and that you will share our deep desire to get involved and become an agent of change for what’s to come, so that the necessary transformations can take place.
 
The rest will be written, as ever and always, by your hand. 
 
In solidarity, 

 Past* and current members of the steering committee :