Two Toronto performing-arts producers are at the centre of allegations of leaving vendors unpaid both in the United States and Canada, court records show.
An Ottawa judge in February, 2023, ordered Classical Ticketing and Production Inc., a company led by producers David Galpern and Charles Roy, to pay Ottawa contractor and audio technician Cayle Campbell $33,614, after Campbell did work for a Christmas event managed by Classical just prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
And in Brooklyn, an immersive-art venue operated by a different company connected with Galpern and Roy has been the subject of a social-media campaign in recent months by numerous former vendors who allege they were left unpaid after providing services to the now-shuttered venue.
Galpern and Roy began producing performances of Shakespeare and other classics under the Classical Theatre Project moniker in 2001. They have produced and toured numerous plays and musicals in recent years, including Grease: The Musical in 2017. In 2022, they launched the 25,000-square-foot immersive-art venue ArtsDistrict Brooklyn in New York’s Greenpoint neighbourhood – which the New York theatre-news website Broadway World first reported faced allegations from vendors of non-payment.
In e-mailed statements, representatives for ArtsDistrict and Classical said that the companies were unable to make the payments because they were insolvent. Though the performing-arts sector is widely struggling after pandemic lockdowns and rampant inflation, ArtsDistrict’s parent company was confirmed as bankrupt by an Ontario court only in March, and Classical never formally filed for insolvency, claiming that it had insufficient assets to fund the process.
The person leading the public campaign against ArtsDistrict and its founders is Tyler Mount, chief executive of the marketing and design firm Henry Street Creative, which created marketing materials for ArtsDistrict. In legal filings, Mount and his company alleged that a related limited-liability company, Immersive Management and Services – which had contracted Henry Street for its ArtsDistrict projects – owed Mount’s firm US$134,877 for unpaid work.
Last November, a New York state judge ordered Immersive to pay Mount what his company was owed, plus costs and interest, totalling US$181,970 – which he said, as of mid-April, has still not been paid. “It’s really disheartening,” Mount said. “Even a contract and a judgment still doesn’t mean that justice is served.”
In the interview and in documents filed with the New York County Supreme Court, Mount said that Immersive stopped paying him for his services about two months after he signed an agreement with the company for his ArtsDistrict work. He said he watched for months as Immersive used promotional content that Mount’s company Henry Street had created, including video, social-media and website content.
He and several other vendors shared documents and correspondence connected to Roy, Galpern and ArtsDistrict with The Globe and Mail – including documentation confirming that Immersive is a subsidiary of a Canadian numbered company that lists Roy and Galpern as directors. This documentation shows that Mount and several other vendors that worked with Galpern and Roy’s companies have yet to be paid for work done in recent years, including at ArtsDistrict Brooklyn.
In an e-mail, ArtsDistrict spokesperson Ian McAuley said that the company took on “considerable debt” to “give Brooklyn a cutting-edge venue for immersive event designers.” But, he continued, “the overall debt service and operating cost proved too great, putting the company into an untenable position,” in which its bank called back its loan and forced the company into insolvency.
“We have been working with a trustee who will make proposals to any legitimate creditors,” McAuley continued, adding that the company’s principals lost the money they had invested into the business.
Roy and Galpern also filed a claim in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice on April 8 seeking $5-million in damages, plus costs and interest, alleging Mount and his company engaged in harassment, defamation, intrusion upon seclusion and conspiracy in what they called a “vengeful” campaign.
Asked about the filing, Mount said in an e-mail: “Any action commenced against us in this matter will be vigorously defended.”
Beyond taking Immersive to court to recoup his lost income, Mount also began speaking with leaders from other companies that had worked with Immersive at ArtsDistrict, many of whom told him they’d also been left unpaid.
Campbell’s situation in Ottawa has also extended this campaign back to Canada; he and Mount got in touch in late 2023 when they realized they shared frustration and, allegedly, unpaid bills.
Campbell was hired in 2019 to be operations supervisor and audio operator for a month-long Christmas festival filled with light installations called Glow Gardens, which had partnered with Classical to manage the event. He said that Classical paid his first invoice but not a subsequent three totalling more than $33,000 – though at one point he was sent an interim payment of $2,000.
After chasing Classical’s principals with a collection agency, Campbell eventually took them and several connected parties to court, where a small-claims judge in Ottawa found Classical in default and ordered it to pay Campbell what he was owed, plus costs and interest.
Campbell said this week that he still hadn’t been paid. He said he later worked for Glow Gardens directly for other events and was always paid on time. (Glow Gardens declined to comment.)
Bryan A. Tannenbaum, Classical’s licensed insolvency trustee consultant, said in a statement: “Considering the double blow of the [event] producer not paying and that the world had shut down because of COVID-19, it was my opinion at the time that the business was unfortunately no longer viable. Classical was insolvent, and the Company no longer had any resources to fund any defence against claims from creditors.”
With research from Rick Cash and Stephanie Chambers.
Josh O’Kane