It’s curtains for another postsecondary musical theatre program in Ontario.
St. Lawrence College, with campuses in Kingston, Cornwall and Brockville, announced this week it will suspend approximately 40 per cent of its programming, including its musical theatre programs. The suspension will begin in the 2025 spring semester. The affected theatre programs – an advanced diploma in music theatre, and a collaborative bachelor of music theatre degree with Queen’s University – will no longer accept new applicants.
Students already enrolled in affected programs will be able to graduate as planned, the college said, and degree requirements for the streams in question will remain unchanged.
St. Lawrence joins the growing number of Canadian educational institutions whose budgets have been slashed because of federal caps on the intake of international students. The federal government said it released 40 per cent fewer international study permits in 2024 than in 2023, and is looking to scale back an additional 10 per cent this year. Colleges and universities across the country have had to reckon with a sudden decrease in international tuition, leaving hundreds of degree and diploma programs on the chopping block.
In December, Sheridan College stunned the theatre community when they announced a suspension of their pre-college program, as well as an “efficiency review” of their internationally renowned bachelor of music theatre degree.
With the looming suspension of St. Lawrence’s musical theatre programs, advocates worry it will become even harder for emerging talent to enter Canada’s competitive theatre industry. International students accounted for 14 per cent of the music theatre programs’ student intake, the college said in an e-mail.
“This is a difficult time for [St. Lawrence College] and for Ontario colleges in general,” said St. Lawrence College president and CEO Glenn Vollebregt in an e-mailed statement to The Globe. “Colleges provide leadership and opportunities to local and regional economies through the programs and services they provide, and the talents that their students and graduates possess.
“In the past 12 months, we have navigated repeated government policy decisions that limit our ability to serve our communities. We are committed to reimagining our college to ensure we remain financially sustainable, and so we can continue to deliver programming that meets labour market needs while providing access to high-quality, practical education for students as we have done for almost 60 years.”
Vollebregt said federal study permit caps are directly to blame for the College’s decision to suspend some of its programs.
“In some cases, like music theatre, programs with low domestic enrolment were being supported by revenues from programs with high international student enrolment,” said Vollebregt. “Without the boost to operating costs international student tuition provided, programs that are not financially sustainable on their own have had to be suspended.”
Ciel Crosby, a parent and talent agent based in Halifax, had planned to bring her daughter to Toronto this week to audition for St. Lawrence College’s music theatre program. The news of the program’s suspension was shocking, she said. Crosby and her daughter came to Toronto on Thursday anyway, citing non-refundable plane tickets and a desire to explore the city her daughter might one day call home – “We’re making lemons out of lemonade,” she told The Globe.
“All the communications we’d had with [St. Lawrence College] before had been very positive,” said Crosby, who heard of the cancelled auditions from a friend just days before they were meant to take place.
“But this is a huge loss,” she added, reflecting on the cuts at both St. Lawrence and Sheridan, where her daughter will audition for the school’s music theatre degree program. “We should not have to look outside our own country to get triple-threat training … We need to be investing in the arts continually. There are hundreds of kids across the country who are trying to figure out where they want to go to school right now, and this is a big blow to them.”
