Playwrights Theatre Centre's artistic and executive director Heidi Taylor departing at end of the year
After 12 years of leadership, Taylor will complete her tenure on December 31 as organization shifts to a new leadership model
Heidi Taylor.
HEIDI TAYLOR IS leaving her role as artistic and executive director of Playwrights Theatre Centre at the end of 2024 after 12 years, the organization has just announced.
PTC’s board of directors is to announce a new leadership model in August. Taylor will play a part in the leadership transition through the fall and will officially leave her post on December 31.
“I am honoured by the trust that so many artists have placed in me during my time at PTC,” Taylor says in a release. “To have such creative freedom has been a privilege. I am also endlessly delighted by the number of artists I have mentored that have returned to become my colleagues and heroes. PTC’s strength has always been in its people, and the board and current team are beautifully prepared to lead PTC’s next act.”
The outgoing leader started her career at PTC as associate dramaturg in 2005 and became dramaturg three years later. She was named artistic and associate director in 2012, filling the shoes of Martin Kinch upon his retirement. During her tenure, Taylor established the company’s community hub and studio on Gore Street in 2013 and led the move to Progress Lab 1422 in 2019.
During the pandemic, when many theatres and arts organizations had no choice but to shut their doors, PTC co-hosted The Digital Dramaturgy Initiative, offering research and development support for creative online experiments.
Taylor also built upon PTC’s tradition of developing new works, creating the Unscripted program to encourage public engagement in play development, and the WrightSpace residency to support comprehensive creative research.
As board member of the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas (LMDA), chairing its conference at SFU in 2013, Taylor represented PTC nationally and internationally. During her total of 19 years with PTC, she also dramaturged more than 20 world premieres, including plays by Pedro Chamale (Peace Country), Derek Chan (yellow objects), Carmen Aguirre (Anywhere But Here), Tetsuro Shigematsu (Kuroko, 1 Hour Photo), Ziyian Kwan (Public and Private), and choreographer Amber Funk Barton (How to Say Goodbye), among many others. She dramaturged for Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre’s MSG Theatre Lab from 2016 to 2020, including Zahida Rahemtulla’s The Wrong Bashir.
Taylor received her MFA in interdisciplinary contemporary art from SFU, where she taught acting for 15 years.
Taylor is currently process dramaturg for Mermaid Spring by Barbara Adler and Kyla Gardiner of The Public Swoon. She was a cofounder and co-artistic director of Proximity Lab/Arts from 2003 to 2016, and taught acting as a sessional instructor at SFU from 1999 to 2013. Taylor is also the secretary of the board for C-Space, PTC’s shared home. 
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