Blackbird Theatre is a professional theatre company dedicated to performing the classics.

A classic play is a great house in which many people may live.  It is also a human fable that time does not invalidate.  We draw our inspiration from the great playwrights of the ancient and modern worlds, and from the community in which we live.  Our plays are chosen for the brilliance of their dramatic and comedic achievements and their relevance to contemporary life.

We invite you to join us in bringing the excitement, sophistication and profound pleasures of Blackbird’s classical theatre to Vancouver.  If you wish to support Blackbird Theatre, or you would like to be kept informed about our activities, please contact us.

John Wright, Artistic Director

Artistic Director John Wright began his professional career as an actor in Vancouver in the 1960s. His directing credits range from Aeschylus to Ayckbourne, as well as film and television dramas and documentaries. He holds a BA from UBC and an MFA from Stanford. At the Vancouver Playhouse under Artistic Director Joy Coghill, John developed stage 2 for the presentation of new Canadian plays. In 1973 he wrote and directed The Visitor, a feature film starring Eric Peterson. John's most recent television documentary was Children of Bach (introduced by Ben Heppner). A twenty year member of the Vancouver Cantata Singers, he co-produced (with Paddy Macleod) the Juno-nominated CD A Venetian Vespers of 1640. John was Head of Theatre and Film at UBC from 1994 to 1999. Motivated as always by the resonance of classic works in the modern world, he co-founded Blackbird Theatre with Paddy Macleod in 2004. He has directed all but one of Blackbird’s productions, including Errol Durbach’s adaptation of Peer Gynt (which won the Jessie award for Outstanding Production of 2006/07), Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Waiting for Godot.  In 2010 he was inducted into the B.C. Entertainment Hall of Fame as a Pioneer.

Paddy Macleod, General Manager

General Manager Paddy Macleod is the co-founder, along with John Wright, of Blackbird Theatre Company.  She has come to Blackbird with more than twenty five years of experience in Arts Administration, mostly in the music sector where she managed the Vancouver Cantata Singers and met John Wright who was a bass member of the choir for many seasons.  Together they produced  a widely telecast documentary entitled Children of Bach and a Juno nominated CD – A Venetian Vespers of 1640. Well-known as an arts activist in Vancouver, she has been President of  several of the City’s prominent cultural organizations including the Greater Vancouver Alliance for Arts and Culture, and the Vancouver Music Alliance.  At present she serves as a board director of Festival Vancouver where she also chairs the Program Advisory Committee and as Vice-Chair of the Vancouver Concert Hall and Theatre Society (formerly the Coal Harbour Arts Complex Committee). Born in South Africa, Paddy’s early experience was in the fields of journalism and broadcasting and prior to entering into arts administration in Canada she received an MA in English Literature from Simon Fraser University.  Her life-long passion for the arts continues to inspire her work in the cultural community.

Marti Wright, Resident Designer

Resident Designer Marti Wright is a founding member of Blackbird Theatre.  She is a graduate in design of the National Theatre School, a graduate in painting of Emily Carr, and has an MFA in Theatre and Film Design from UBC.  Her designs have been featured in nearly every one of Vancouver’s theatres, and at Tarragon and the Factory Lab in Toronto, Ottawa’s National Arts Centre, and the Centaur Theatre in Montreal.  Marti also has extensive credits as set decorator and production designer in film. She has worked closely for many years in both theatre and film with John Wright, who is her brother.  Her designs for Blackbird Theatre have included sets and costumes for Mary Stuart, The Birthday Party, Hecuba, Waiting for Godot, and Pinter’s Briefs, and set designs for Peer Gynt, for which she received a Jessie nomination, and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, and the costume designs for Great Expectations. In addition to her work for Blackbird she has designed the sets for Patrick Street’s, Into The Woods, costumes for Pi Theatre's The Eighth Land, set and costumes for City Opera's The Emperor of Atlantis, and costumes for Fiddler on the Roof in Chemainus.  Marti has taught at UBC, Emily Carr and the Vancouver Film School.

Errol Durbach, Dramaturge

Errol Durbach (MA [Cantab.], PhD [London]) joined the faculty at UBC in 1967, serving as Head of Theatre from 1987 to 1994 and Associate Dean of Arts between 1995 and 2000. His fields of interest concentrate primarily on Theatre History, Dramatic Literature and Dramaturgy, and his work on the playwright Henrik Ibsen has resulted in three volumes of critical analysis as well as an acclaimed adaptation of Peer Gynt, which was performed at the Telus Theatre at UBC under the direction of John Wright, and invited to the International Ibsen Festival in Norway. Later it was given its first professional production by Blackbird Theatre, winning the Jessie Richardson Theatre Award for Outstanding Production of 2006/07. Errol has also appeared on stage at the Frederic Wood theatre in many roles, which include Kent in King Lear, Menelaos in The Trojan Women, Hamm in Endgame and The Button Moulder in Peer Gynt.  Now retired from UBC, Errol has been engaged in various pursuits in the professional community, including the adaptation of Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations for Blackbird Theatre, which was co-produced by Persephone Theatre in Saskatoon, and played in B.C. at the Gateway in 2011.

Johnna Wright, Associate Artistic Director

Johnna holds an MFA in Drama (Directing) from the University of Alberta, where her thesis production, Maureen Hunter's Transit of Venus, was co-produced by Workshop West Theatre. She is also a graduate of UBC Theatre and works as a freelance director, actor and dramaturg. For Blackbird Theatre Johnna directed The Triumph of Love (Jessie Richardson Awards, Outstanding Director, Outstanding Production). Other BC directing credits include The Merry Wives of Windsor for Bard on the Beach (summer 2012), The Leading Ladies and Annie for the Gateway Theatre (Ovation Award nomination, Outstanding Professional Production), and Landscapes of the Dead and numerous other premieres for Solo Collective (as co-Artistic and Managing Director, 1999-2008). Johnna is currently a Literary Manager for Persephone Theatre in Saskatoon, where this fall she will direct The Importance of Being Earnest (co-produced with Western Canada Theatre). She spent much of 2011 at the Shaw Festival as one of the Neil Munro Directing Interns, acting as Assistant Director to Jackie Maxwell, Molly Smith and Peter Hinton. Johnna is a recipient of the Ray Michal Award for Outstanding Body of Work by an Emerging Director.

Honorary Patrons

Joy Coghill

Actor/director Joy Coghill has left an indelible mark on Canadian theatre as an innovator and a consummate stage and screen performer, teacher and director. She was the first woman to become the artistic director of the Vancouver Playhouse, commissioning  George Ryga’s legendary play The Ecstasy of Rita Joe. Later she headed the National Theatre School’s English Acting Section, and was the first recipient of the school’s first Gascon-Thomas Award. In 1987 Joy wrote and produced Song of this Place, a play with puppets based on the life of Emily Carr.

Breaking new ground in the 1950s, Joy co-founded (with Myra Benson) the first Canadian professional theatre for children (Holiday Theatre). In 1994 she came full circle, founding Western Gold, the first professional company of senior performers.  In 1996 she played Lear in Jane Heyman’s Lear Project, and in 1998 she created The Alzheimer’s Project, which included Aaron Bushkowsky’s play Strangers Among Us, for Western Gold Theatre. She is co-founder (with Jane Heyman) of the Vancouver Performing Arts Lodge.

Joy is a member of the Order of Canada, and has received honorary degrees from Simon Fraser University and the University of British Columbia. She is the recipient of four Jessie Richardson Theatre Awards, the Gascon-Thomas Award (NTS), the Herbert Whittaker Critics’ Association Award and Lifetime Membership in the Canadian Actors’ Equity Association.

IN MEMORIAM
Mavor Moore,
1919-2006

Blackbird Theatre was honoured to count Mavor Moore among its early supporters.

Playwright, producer, actor, director, critic, composer, journalist and teacher, Mavor was the first artist to chair the Canada Council for the Arts, and the founding chair of the BC Arts Council. He was CBC Television's first chief producer, an executive producer for the United Nations in New York, founding chair of the Canadian Theatre Centre, and founding director-general of Toronto's St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts.

Mavor was the author of more than 100 plays, documentaries, musicals and opera librettos, and produced, directed and acted in theatres across Canada, In 1995 he was invited to address the World Commission on Culture and Development at the United Nations. Mavor was a Companion of the Order of Canada, and among other distinctions held the Order of British Columbia, the Queen's Medal, the Governor-General's Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Performing Arts, and honorary degrees from eight universities.

Company History