For a small, newly formed theatre company in Toronto, the first several years can prove to be its making or unmaking. The most innovative ideas and promising actors alone cannot always sustain a group in the absence of the funding necessary to move from conception to production. It is commonly understood that arts funding from municipal, provincial and federal sources is not to be expected during the start-up year, forcing producers to look elsewhere for the dollars necessary to create their first project or season. With respect to the creation of a corpus of works giving representation to Canadian citizens of Italian ancestry, it is fortunate that resources do exist; at the same time it is ironic that, in trying to create theatrical work that promotes a sense of Canadian identity in ethnic communities, an artist attempting to bridge gaps between inherited and adopted cultures often finds help most forthcoming from cultural agencies set up to promote foreign concerns in Canada.