Our Mission and Mandate
Pacific Theatre aspires to delight, provoke and stimulate dialogue by producing theatre that rigorously explores the spiritual aspects of human experience.
Our mission statement is to serve Christ in our community by creating theatre with artistic, spiritual, relational, and financial integrity.
Our Story
Pacific Theatre was established in 1984 by a group of actors who wanted to establish a non-propagandist professional theatre where they would be free to explore work having particular meaning to them as Christians.
After several years of touring productions, the troupe moved into a purpose-built 120-seat alley-style theatre in the historic Chalmers Heritage Building on October 14, 1994, where they’ve been creating theatre that matters ever since.
Over four decades, Pacific Theatre has become renowned for thoughtful, boundary-pushing theatre that explores the hard questions at the root of humanity. Under the vision of founder Ron Reed, the company expanded into a staple of the Vancouver professional theatre community, nurturing some of the city’s finest artists, designers, and technicians. Since moving into the 1440 space, The Jessie Richardson Theatre Awards Society has extended over 190 nominations to Pacific Theatre productions.
In 2020, after 37 years of dedicated service, Ron retired, and long-time PT performer, director, and staff member Kaitlin Williams began her tenure as Pacific’s Artistic Director. Under Kaitlin’s leadership, Pacific has continued to expand its mandate: developing collaborations with other theatres in the city, supporting guest producers and our own programming, and continuing to seek out stories that challenge, uplift, and expand the horizons of our passionate audience.
What We Do
Practitioners at Pacific Theatre work on the traditional and unceded territories of the Coast Salish peoples of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.
In 39 seasons, Pacific Theatre has produced more than 200 professional mainstage productions ranging from established works to original world premieres featuring some of the top theatre artists from Vancouver and across the continent.
Pacific Theatre’s apprenticeship program is a major component of its mandate to develop emerging artists and foster new work. Every season the theatre brings in a handful of up-and-coming theatre artists who are given training and opportunities to develop as professional artists. Features of the apprenticeship program include involvement in mainstage and second-stage events, opportunities to shadow or understudy our professional artists, workshops, and the operation of Stone’s Throw Productions, our non-professional counterpart. Many apprentices have pursued professional careers as actors, writers, directors, stage managers, technicians, designers, and administrators. Pacific Theatre’s current Artistic Director and Production Manager are both past apprentices.
Throughout the past 39 years, Pacific Theatre has developed dozens of new plays through in-house readings and workshops, bringing many of them to their world premieres. Plays developed and produced at Pacific include Espresso, A Bright Particular Star, Prodigal Son, Navy Wife, Tent Meeting, Cariboo Magi, Mercy Wild, Book of the Dragon, Suitcase Stories, Bar Mitzvah Boy, Jesus Freak, Gramma, and Tolkien many of which have gone on to subsequent runs at other professional theatres around the world.
Pacific Theatre has always collaborated with a variety of artists and other companies in Vancouver, including guest productions, co-productions, and presentations in its seasons as collaborators. Often times, these companies find their time with Pacific Theatre to be a launching pad for creating innovative and artistically strong contributions to Vancouver’s theatre community. Companies Pacific Theatre has worked with or mentored include Glass City Theatre, One2Theatre, Midnight Theatre Collective, Touchstone Theatre, Pi Theatre, Pound of Flesh Theatre, Ruby Slippers, Dark Glass Theatre, Cave Canem Productions, Ensemble Theatre and Reid Farrington (New York).
Justice and Inclusion
Pacific Theatre | Equity Update January 2022
Thank you to everyone who has worked with us this year – whether through professional consultation, feedback, or community care – to continue striving towards an equitable and justice-oriented environment at Pacific Theatre.
In 2021, the commons consulting founder Adeline Huynh outlined an action plan for Pacific Theatre with concrete steps to help implement anti-racist, long-term policies and practices at the company. If you’d like to continue to be a part of our accountability and growth process, we’ve outlined our current actions (and areas that still need work) in our second annual Equity Report, which you can read in its entirety below.
Significant changes include, but are not limited to:
- A move to a five-day work week for artists rehearsal (previously six days), with supports in place for those who may have barriers like childcare or travel.
- The continued weekly meeting of the JEDI (Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion) working group, established in June 2020, to focus on equity work at the theatre in day-to-day matters.
- A formal feedback mechanism, supported by confidential third-party reporting software, for all artists working in the space to provide their thoughts and share concerns with our AD and ED. This is available to all performers, creative teams, and technical staff who interact with the theatre.
- A substantial increase in budget allocation for professional consultation around cultural education, community safety, and intra-community mediation. Thank you to Adeline Huynh, Jodi Spargur, Ben Ironstand, Malcolm McKinlay, and Leonie Smith for their support in these areas this year.