Arts community mourns producer, creator and Left Right Minds consultant Allyson McGrane
She worked with hundreds of artists and arts organizations across Metro Vancouver, helping them raise funds through grant-writing
MEMBERS OF VANCOUVER’S arts community are gathering at a celebration of life today for Allyson McGrane, an arts producer and creator who helped uncountable organizations and artists flourish across Metro Vancouver.
The Moose Jaw-born cultural worker died on March 15 at 48 years old, after a battle with cancer.
Having trained as a lawyer at UVic, and been called to the Bar of British Columbia, she went on to become a founding partner at Left Right Minds Initiatives, offering arts consulting and web development. Over the years, she made a name for her unmatched grant-writing skills, securing millions of dollars of funding for a wide variety of local arts organizations, and helping many groups navigate their way through COVID emergency funding. “I guess I feel a need to help,” she wrote on Facebook at the time. “And I have been writing grants for a long, long time. I'm around.”
If you attended a Vancouver theatre or dance performance over the years, chances are that McGrane produced it, helped it raise funding, or taught the people who put on the show how to produce or write grants for the project. Among those many achievements was helping Stir launch and grow as an arts and culture magazine.
Some of the projects she helped bring to fruition were SILENCE! The Musical with Down Stage Right Productions (a recipient of the inaugural 2019 Access Grant from the Arts Club Theatre Company) and an international co-production with the Czech Republic’s New Opera Days Ostrava and the musicians of Vancouver’s Turning Point Ensemble.
She was board member at Theatre Terrific, performed and studied at Instant Theatre Improv, and collaborated with Upintheair Theatre to launch the Neanderthal Festival. (“It has a sense of fun and a sense of play, which is something we don’t always do in theatre,” she once told this reporter of that last event.) In addition, she taught financial management in the Arts & Entertainment Management program at Capilano University as well as serving as the Director of Special Projects for Harrowsmith Magazine. In addition, she worked at the Alliance for Arts and Culture as part of a team of facilitators running the SEARCH program, a month-long self-employment initiative for artists.
She’s also remembered for her upbeat energy, creative strategizing, gifted writing, and love of pugs.
A memorial is being held April 20 from 2 to 4 pm at 336 East 1st Avenue.
McGrane is survived by her spouse Shane Birley, her parents, Jim and Rosella, brother David and sister Jaime, and other extended family. 
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