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Blue Bridge Repertory Theatre

Theatre company founded in Victoria British Columbia in 2009 by Brian Richmond, noted Canadian theatre director, dramaturge, and professor in the University of Victoria theatre department. Other founding theatre artists include: David Ferry, Mary Kerr, Christopher Newton, and Janet Wright. The Blue Bridge Repertory Theatre aims to stage classic plays, old and new, from the European and North American repertoire, operating in Victoria’s historic McPherson Playhouse, a former Pantages Theatre, now beautifully restored. In 2013, the company purchased the Roxy, a second-run cinema built in 1949, to stage its productions.

Named for an old, venerable structure in downtown Victoria, the Company states that one of its mandates is to bridge the gap between theatre generations, between established theatre folk and the next — the younger actors and theatre students from across Canada, the latter in an apprentice-scholarship program.

The first season, presented in the summer of 2009, saw productions of Shakespeare’s As You Like It, Miller’s Death of a Salesman, and Schmidt and Jones’ The Fantastiks, all of which were received with very good reviews. The company set a high standard of professional theatre from the outset, thus according with Richmond’s hopes for a “world-class classical theatre festival here in Victoria.” For the “encore” 2010 season, the Company staged Orton’s Loot, Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, and Collins’ Hank Williams, The Show He Never Gave. In 2011, it staged Fire, its first Canadian work. The 2016 summer season included Long Day’s Journey into Night with David Ferry as James Tyrone Sr. The 2021-22 season, undertaken while the Covid-19 pandemic was still limiting live performances, included I, Claudia by Kristen Thomson, and Ride the Cyclone by Jacob Richmond and Brooke Maxwell.

Website: wwwbluebridgetheatre.ca

Profile by James Hoffman, Thompson Rivers University

Last updated 2021-09-14