Pacific Theatre, Green Thumb Theatre announce new artistic directors
There are more big changes in Vancouver’s theatre community
Kaitlin Williams has been appointed artistic director of Pacific Theatre. Photo by Kristine Chomsky
PACIFIC THEATRE’S board of directors has announced the appointment of Kaitlin Williams as the company’s new artistic director. She succeeds founding artistic director Ron Reed, who cofounded the company in 1984
An actor and director whose credits include work for Bard on the Beach, the Arts Club Theatre, Western Canada Theatre, and Touchstone Theatre, among others, Williams launched her career as an apprentice with Pacific Theatre in 2009. Shows she has directed have received eight Jessie nominations, including outstanding production and direction for Kim’s Convenience.
“I am thrilled with the decision,” Reed said in a statement. “Kaitlin has a long history with our company and knows its ethos and mandate in her bones - as well as having her own ideas about how we need to move into the next chapter of the theatre’s history.”
Reed, artistic director emeritus, will still be involved in an advisory capacity for the season with Pacific Theatre resuming COVID-safe operations.
“I take on this role with a profound respect and appreciation for the artistic legacy that Ron has established,” Williams said. “I myself am joining an incredible staff ready to tackle the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead along with a committed and engaged Board of Directors.”
Williams noted that one of her priorities is to carry on the company’s work in the areas of inclusion and justice. This past summer, Pacific Theatre created an anti-racism working group consisting of staff, board, and community members, and it has hired a consultant to work with the organization over the coming months.
Williams’s first project, and the return to performance for the company since the pandemic hit, is a remount of Maki Yi’s Suitcase Stories. Developed by Yi during her own Pacific Theatre apprenticeship in 2016, the one-woman show traces her journey from South Korea to Canada and her experiences forging an identity in a new culture and career. Suitcase Stories runs October 14 to 25.
Rachel Aberle will be helming Green Thumb Theatre as of January 1, 2021. Photo by Green Thumb Theatre
Rachel Aberle appointed new artistic director of Green Thumb Theatre
After 32 years at the helm of Green Thumb Theatre, Patrick McDonald will be stepping down at the end of 2020. Associate Artistic director and theatre artist Rachel Aberle will then take over.
Founded in 1975, Green Thumb tours schools and other venues across Canada. Its productions for children and youth are accompanied by comprehensive study guides for students and educators to foster deeper learning and discussion.
Having led the organization since 1988, McDonald gained a reputation for placing equal emphasis on youth engagement and artistic integrity, fulfilling Green Thumb’s mandate to provide socially relevant professional live performance to young people regardless of their geographic or economic status.
“I am proud of how, as a company, we have stayed to course over the last three decades continuing to create new, engaging, and challenging work about the issues young audiences are dealing with,” McDonald said in the announcement. “I am especially proud of the number of scripts we have brought forward that are now a part of the growing canon of Theatre for Young Audience scripts produced world-wide.”
Aberle made her professional performance debut with Green Thumb and has written two critically acclaimed plays for the organization. STILL/FALLING, which explores adolescent mental health, earned a Jessie Richardson Theatre Award for Significant Artistic Achievement; THE CODE, which looks at themes of consent and cyberbullying, won a Jessie Award for Outstanding Production and the Sydney J. Risk Prize for Outstanding Original Script by an Emerging Writer.
“I have grown up at Green Thumb, under the mentorship and guidance of Patrick McDonald,” Aberle said in a release. “During these difficult times, I take this role on with a deep appreciation of the complex challenges the company faces. I believe that now, more than ever, young people deserve opportunities to explore the struggles they face on a daily basis. This is the work that Green Thumb has always done, and work that I am excited to continue to do.
For its part with respect to diversity and inclusion, Green Thumb “is examining how it can disrupt white supremacist systems of oppression” and has hired Cambium Arts & Education to develop a plan for racial equity.
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