Local theatre company TheatreOne recently announced that stage manager Anne Taylor, whose previous credits include Vancouver’s Arts Club Theatre, Regina’s Globe Theatre and the Chemainus Theatre, will be its new general manager.
Taylor takes over from Eliza Gardiner, who left to focus on her work in VIU’s drama department.
“The thing that TheatreOne does so well is the fostering of local talent and telling Canadian and British Columbian stories,” Taylor said. “So that’s what I’m going to be focused on is helping them to do that to the largest audience that they can as well as they can.”
TheatreOne’s 2018-19 season is now underway. Its Just Kidding For Kids series starts with Jacky’s Village, a showcase of Cameroonian and Guinean music and dance with dancer Jacky Essombe at Malaspina Theatre on Saturday, Oct. 6. The theatre group’s Fringe Flicks screenings continue with the Sundance Special Jury Prize-winning documentary Three Identical Strangers at the Avalon Cinema on Oct. 14 and 15. Taylor said she’s excited to take in her first Bite of Nanaimo fundraiser at Beban Park auditorium on Oct. 19. TheatreOne’s Mainstage productions begin in November with Vancouver playwright Anosh Irani’s Bombay Black, a hit at last year’s Vancouver Fringe Festival, and TheatreOne’s Emerging Voices staged readings series starts in January with Driving Me Crazy by west coast writers Linda A. Carson and Suzanne Ristic.
Taylor knows Irani from her Vancouver days and is looking forward to Bombay Black.
“I worked with him I think when he was just starting as a theatre artist at the Arts Club,” she said. “I helped with one of their play development series and I got to see that through and I’ve been following his career so I’m really, really excited to see one of his shows on the main stage.”
The 2018-19 season was programmed before Taylor’s arrival. She said she plans to stage more productions that tell the history of Vancouver Island and are “rehearsed here and developed here and are about here.”
“That’s what TheatreOne does best and I think that’s what our audience really enjoys is seeing their stories and their histories onstage,” she said.
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