Vancouver Fringe Festival names Cory Philley new executive director
New hire heads to her new post in January from theatre and events services at the Shadbolt
Cory Philley has worked in theatre for more than three decades, writing, producing, and directing.
THE VANCOUVER FRINGE Theatre Society has just announced Cory Philley as its new executive director.
Philley heads to the organization behind the Vancouver Fringe Festival on January 4, 2022, from her role as artistic director for the theatre season at Burnaby’s Shadbolt Centre for the Arts. She is theatre and events services coordinator at the facility. Philley also led its artist-in-residence program.
Philley is a longtime theatre writer, performer, director, and producer, and was a founding member and co-artistic director of La Luna Productions (from 1998 to 2007). She graduated from SFU’s School for the Contemporary Arts and went on to its Graduate Liberal Studies program.
Philley replaces interim leader Sylvia Ceacero, who stepped in when recently installed artistic director Rohit Chokhani left his position as executive director in April 2021. The founder of Diwali in B.C. had overseen a pivot to a series of scaled-back mini-festivals in Fall 2020, during the pandemic. He, in turn, had replaced Laura Efron the previous April, after she oversaw two installments of the fest.
The Vancouver Fringe Festival has been undergoing a strategic organizational review for the past few years, with a mandate of equity, diversity, and inclusion.
The board tied the departure of Chokhani into a larger shift at the event. In its post, it committed to further “rethink and refresh” the fest. In 2019, the Fringe hosted more than 700 performances around town by more than 90 artists over 11 days.
Philley was hired after the Fringe board had held a wide search process in collaboration with the Search Committee and Harbour West Consulting.
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