The Theatre Royal in the historic town of Barkerville will have a new operator in 2020.
Ed Coleman, the CEO who is also retiring, confirms that after 16 years the Newman and Wright Theatre Company has decided to transition on to other endeavours.
Coleman says the search is well underway for a replacement…
“In this case it will be an internal search, we’ll work with the existing interpretive contract holders first, and if we can achieve the Theatre Royal function with that group we’ll do that. Otherwise we would go out to an external RFP province wide but we’re starting with an internal process first. And part of that is, the Theatre Royal group is very familiar with our internal contract holders for interpretation, so that helps with a smooth transition when you are in a situation where we have a contract holder that is ready to retire from that function and move onto some of the fun projects that we’re working on.”
Coleman says they hope to make a decision late this week or early next week.
He says the timing for the change is good, and he says Amy Newman and Richard Wright will help with the transition…
“They have done an excellent job and they’re really great to work with. We knew they’d be ready for transition at some point, and we were able to sit down early so we can make this decision with them now, which gives us lots of time to be prepared for the programming in 2020.”
Coleman says he is confident that the Theatre Royal, a big draw at Barkerville, will continue to be fun and display a high quality of work.