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Pres-ED message / Bulletins / In The Zone / Curtain Call / TBC Directory

Greetings,

I sincerely hope that everyone is having a wonderful Season and that you were fortunate enough to ring in a brand new millennium with those who are near and dear to you. Best wishes for a very healthy, happy and prosperous 2000!

I guess there is some validity to the saying "time flies when you are having fun. It is hard to fathom that more than six months have passed since that wonderful time in Nanaimo in July, 1999....but it has and that means we have less than six months left until Mainstage 2000! Now that's a scarey thought. Zones are already busy preparing their festivals with some of them on the doorstep as we speak. To all the participants and the committees....Good Luck with your festivals and I know that each one will be successful and extremely entertaining. I encourage you to get out and support your zone and attend all the productions that you can....you won't regret it for a moment. And then make plans to attend Mainstage 2000 in Delta to cheer on your Zone's representative.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Backstage ‘99 organizing committee for a very successful and enjoyable event. It appears to have been the best Backstage ever from all accounts and I am still hearing good reports about the workshops. Kudos to all of you, but especially Val Mason and Anne Marsh. Congratulations!

At Backstage, the Board of Directors accepted the resignation of Ken Hutchinson as Vice President for Membership & Communications. Ken's job and his teaching were expanding and moving forward in directions that it difficult to maintain his commitment to TBC. Rather than be unable to meet his own standards, he chose to resign and allow someone else to get on with the tasks at hand. We certainly thank him for his dedication, his diligence and his past commitment to Theatre BC and wish him all the very best in his future endeavours. The door is always open to return to the committee, Ken. Thank you and good luck.

We chose not to appoint another Vice President at this time. This position will be up for election in July, so we opted to ask our Past President, Marianne Brorup Weston to chair Membership & Communications for the remainder of the term. Marianne has already jumped on board and come up with some pretty good ideas which we are considering for the future. Jane Hyslop, VAZ Chair, is also on this committee. If you are interested in serving on this Standing Committee, please contact Marianne or Jane (see the TBC directory).

As usual...Pennie Liebel is still working away on the books and Robb is working away in the office....which has officially moved to new quarters in Nanaimo. Evidently we have been embraced by the community, so it appears that this was definitely the best move for many reasons. If you are ever in the area, make it a point to drop by and visit our new "digs". Thank you to Mike Patton and Robb for their work in securing the facility and to Lindsay, as well, for her assistance in making the transition a relatively smooth one.

The Executive Committee is committed to working together to ensure that TBC continues to move forward in the most positive way possible. The door is always open and your remarks and ideas are always welcome. Do not hesitate to contact the TBC office at any time....mail....phone...fax or email...we'd love to hear from you!

Sincerely,

Carroll Lefebvre, President

I don’t know about you, but I’m sure this has been the fastest year of my life! It is very reassuring to see the amount of positive activity throughout Theatre BC‘s Zones. The support offered by the BC Festival of the Arts for our Regional Workshop program has certainly played a positive role. The first co-sponsored session in Cranbrook, which featrured Robert Metcalfe, was very successful, with thirty-four registrants, leading the way for a strong recovery for the Zone. There could be as many as ten productions in the KOZ Festival in Creston this spring. How’s that for a comeback? And the same is true in the Peace River Zone. After a September Regional Workshop, featuring Kate Weiss, the PRZ has confirmed six productions for the spring regional festival in Fort St. John. This will be the first PRZ Festival in three years.

At press time, we have nearly all Zone Adjudicators lined up. This was partially necessitated by the fact that we have three early festivals this year (two during the last week of March and one during the first week of April). Zone Festivals are filling up, so if your Club is interested in entering, please call your Zone Chair or Zone Festival Chair as soon as possible. We may well have the highest total number of Zone Festival entries in TBC history. In fact, nearly every Zone may be eligible for the ‘Workshop Plays’ component of MAINSTAGE with the minimum number of six entries. Now there’s a happy problem!

We are very excited about this year’s New Play Festival in Kamloops. I would personally like to thank David Ross of Western Canada Theatre, Ron McColl, Recreation & Culture Mgr. for the City of Kamloops, and Lenore Mitchell and Adele M. Kuyek Grout, Co-Chairs for the event, for playing key roles in making this event happen. Why not come out and join us for an exciting weekend of new play workshops.

I would like to welcome Lisa Desprez and Nick Longo to the staff of Theatre BC. Lisa and Nick are available to us through a Job Creation Project, courtesy of HRDC and Employment Partnerships.

Please feel free to contact me anytime. Call the Theatre BC office 250-714-0203, fax (250) 714-0213, or my new cel phone number at 250-713-0232, or email me at robb@theatrebc.org.

And make sure we have your email address, so you can receive regular email ‘Bulletins’ and updates.

Robb Mowbray
Executive Director