Mounting a musical comedy that features a cast of 14 and a six-piece band might be the easy part of the job for Max Reimer, the new artistic managing director of the Playhouse Theatre Company.

Reimer is directing The Drowsy Chaperone, which runs at the Playhouse from next Thursday (November 27) to December 27. In this exuberant, ironic—and Tony-winning—love letter to the theatre, a character called Man in Chair introduces us to his favourite Broadway show, which features gangsters disguised as pastry chefs, a Latin lothario, and an aviatrix, among other characters. Vancouver favourite Jay Brazeau is playing Man in Chair.

Perched on the edge of a couch in his office at the Playhouse’s temporary space on East 2nd Avenue (a new Playhouse production facility is being built near the Olympic Village), Reimer couldn’t be more pleased with how rehearsals are going. “It’s out of this world,” he enthuses. “Tap-dancing like you would not believe. There are just so many things that I can’t wait for people to see.”

Rehearsals are intense, but The Drowsy Chaperone will open in a few days. Strategizing the financial survival of the Playhouse is a longer-term—and more daunting—project. Fifty-four-year-old Reimer, who took over this season from outgoing artistic director Glynis Leyshon, is the first Playhouse leader to fill the new role of artistic managing director, a position that combines the previously separate jobs of artistic director and business manager.

He is refreshingly straightforward about the sorry state of the Playhouse. “We’ve shrunk,” he admits. He notes that the company went from six shows per season to five in 2000-01, and it went from four-and-a-half-week runs to three-and-a-half-week runs in 2004-05. He says that, in the last 10 years, subscriptions have fallen from about 8,000 to about 5,000.

Interestingly, Reimer has just come from Hamilton’s Theatre Aquarius, where he built the subscriber base from under 5,800 to over 8,200 over 12 seasons. He also eliminated the theatre’s operating deficit of $350,000, increased sponsorships by 200 percent and public funding by 300 percent, and generated an operating surplus every season.

Vancouver could prove a tougher haul, partly because the Playhouse rents its theatre from the city, rather than owning its own stage. Every year, the Friends of Chamber Music books the Playhouse for 10 Tuesday-night concerts. In a long-standing practice, if those concerts overlap with the Playhouse Theatre Company’s technical-rehearsal or run dates, the theatre company is required to give up the space and, at its own expense, move most of its set in and out. “Nowhere in the world! Nowhere in the world!” Reimer exclaims. “No other theatre has to step aside to allow a 10-night user to bump a 250-night user. And I think it’s political, quite frankly, because there’s no [written] agreement that says it has to be that way.” This practice is also problematic in that the Playhouse can’t sell tickets for its Tuesday shows until the FOCM has confirmed its slots.

Rae Ackerman, the director of Vancouver civic theatres, says the FOCM was among the first renters of the space, and that when the Playhouse became the resident company, it understood that it would have to accommodate the FOCM’s Tuesday nights.

Nevertheless, Reimer swears that he will resolve the issue. “All I want is to create winning conditions, because we need that,” he says. “Certainly, others have it, and that’s why they’re successful.”

Reimer has other plans as well. Four years ago, the Playhouse changed its mandate, declaring that it would only produce works written since 1950. Reimer found this restriction unnecessary. “We’ve removed that,” he says. “It’s one of the first things I did.”

Reimer is vague when it comes to his artistic vision, however. “I’ve just got to do what I do” is about as specific as he gets. There is evidence, however, that Reimer does not lean toward artistic adventure. In response to the observation that his programming at Theatre Aquarius looks conservative, he replies, “I’m surprised that you would say ”˜conservative’ because I was criticized for doing so much Norm Foster.” Foster, who has written works such as Here on the Flight Path, is one of the most produced and least daring playwrights in the country. Reimer acknowledges that Foster is artistically conservative, but says that his work can bomb at the box office, so it’s financially risky. And he’s clear that Vancouver and Hamilton audiences differ. He speaks enthusiastically about Vancouver’s taste for challenge and the sensuality of physical theatre. And he’s careful to point out that he knows he’d be “tarred and feathered” if he produced Foster’s Jupiter in July here, even though it was successful in Hamilton.

In the shorter term, there’s The Drowsy Chaperone. Perhaps, as Reimer contends, the Playhouse will begin to distinguish itself, not through an artificial mandate but through sheer excellence. “People will see work of discernible quality on-stage,” he promises. Just before heading into morning rehearsals, he adds: “This is my first crack at it. I’m really, really pleased with how it’s going. And I can’t wait to do more.”