BC theatres
New Westminster: Reaction to Massey plan mostly positive
Ed Harrington, who has spent thousands of hours directing musicals in the Massey Theatre, believes the best days of the facility are long past and it’s time to move on. “Sometimes it’s hard to say goodbye but we need to,” said Harrington, who served 16 years as the artistic director of the Royal City Musical [...]
Theatre Kelowna finally in centre it helped create
There will be quite a scene at The Scene Shop in the Rotary Arts Centre come this September. Finally, after about 20 years of wanting and wishing and hoping, Kelowna’s volunteer theatre group, Theatre Kelowna, will be moving into the centre—eight years after it opened and decades after they first started fundraising to build the [...]
North Vancouver: The ‘Lower Lonsdale Cultural Facilities Study’ is a new comprehensive planning study to relocate three of the community’s most important arts, heritage and cultural facilities
Under the guidance of the Arts Office, the ‘Lower Lonsdale Cultural Facilities Study’ was prepared for the City of North Vancouver by the consultant team of Proscenium Architecture & Interiors together with Lydia Marston-Blaauw (Cultural Consultant). In its most basic terms, the ’Study’ provides a flexible, broad-based planning framework to guide the City’s future planning and decision-making in respect of three [...]
Vancouver: Fix the Pantages — and the neighbourhood (letter by Donna Spencer)
Re: It’s curtains for the Pantages Theatre, July 3 I read this article by John Mackie with dismay and disappointment. How could we allow a historical treasure with such a rich history to be forgotten and dismissed? The Pantages Theatre Society worked diligently with Marc Williams, of Worthington Properties, to restore the theatre, without success, [...]
B.C. icon David Foster pulls name from Saanich arts centre
It turns out that David Foster isn’t so keen on the David Foster Arts Centre. The Victoria-born music icon — winner of 15 Grammys as a songwriter and producer — told the suburb of Saanich he no longer wants his name associated with a multimillion-dollar addition to the local Cedar Hill Recreation Centre. “I don’t [...]
Vancouver: Refurbished Vogue Theatre hopes to host 200 events annually: A deco gem is relaunched
The last few years haven’t been kind to Vancouver’s old theatres. The Lux on Hastings burned down. The Imperial on Main street (last known as the Venus) was knocked down for a condo. Concord Pacific tore down the remains of the Columbia and National on Hastings. Canada’s oldest remaining vaudeville theatre, the Pantages, also looks [...]
Coquitlam: Evergreen has a new Executive Director
Jon-Paul Walden has been appointed as the new Executive Director of Evergreen Cultural Centre. Jon-Paul brings to the community outstanding expertise in diverse areas and his tenure comes at a time when the arts and cultural centre is experiencing enormous growth. His lengthy professional career has been solidly rooted in the arts. Jon-Paul comes to [...]
Chilliwack: Cultural Centre still has a ways to go
Anticipation for the new arts facility to be up and running is starting to grow. The glass doors of the new Chilliwack Cultural Centre were thrown open to the media this week for a tour of the $22-million facility on Corbould Street. “This is a truly spectacular building,” said Michael Cade, executive director of the [...]
Vancouver: Arts Summit takes on urban planning
Part two of the Alliance for Arts’ annual Arts Summit took place Friday (June 25) at Surrey’s swanky new Chuck Bailey Recreation Centre. Front and centre in the minds of Summit participants, who represented various disciplines of Metro Vancouver’s cultural community, was the lack of venues for arts activity. A morning panel discussion, Cultural Assets and [...]
Vancouver: BC Buds festival grows beyond Firehall: Free performances in music, dance and theatre sprout up in unlikely venues
Several years ago, Donna Spencer was in an ideas session for a new spring performing-arts festival. Since the festival was supposed to encourage new groups and performances on the May long weekend, everyone was talking about new growth, seeds sprouting and other spring metaphors. When it came time to name the festival, Spencer came up [...]
Whistler: WAC and MY Place Society join forces
To the average arts patron, Maurice Young Millennium Place (MY Place) has probably seemed rather quiet over the past year and half, with only a few public events staged there. But there has been plenty going on behind the scenes, as staff from MY Place and Whistler Arts Council (WAC) have been hashing out a [...]
New Cultch season set to wow crowds: Despite some shrinkage, Vancouver East Cultural Centre offers exciting mix of music, theatre, dance
Fans of the Vancouver East Cultural Centre were spoiled for choice this year as the Cultural Olympiad flooded the Cultch with interesting offerings of music, theatre and dance. Executive director Heather Redfern says that while the party’s not over, it is a little quieter for the 2010/11 season. “This is a smaller program than last [...]
Victoria: Local theatre gets an expensive new mask
Intrepid Theatre Club and Metro Studio may be looking pretty swanky in the coming months, as a $45,000 government grant will offer the venues a new facelift. The grant, which came from the Department of Canadian Heritage and the B.C. Arts Council, was given to Intrepid Theatre at the end of March, and will be [...]
Burns Lake: Local group has sights set on re-opening theatre
The Lakes District Film Society, formed in October 2008, have a common interest in film and aspire to purchasing the Beacon Theatre on Hwy. 16 as a community venture. The society proposes to operate the Beacon Theatre as a non-profit, community-owned enterprise. According to society member Michael Riis-Christianson the idea has been successful in other [...]
Victoria: Facelift funding for Intrepid
Thanks to grants from federal and provincial arts funding bodies, Intrepid Theatre will be doing some much-needed renovations and upgrades to its performance spaces. With $25,000 from the Department of Canadian Heritage and $20,000 from the B.C. Arts Council, the Victoria company will increase capacity at the Metro Studio from 130 to 200 and make [...]
