When Bill Millerd joined Arts Club Theatre Company, in 1972, the organization was nine years old and producing four shows each year in a converted gospel hall on Seymour Street. It had an annual budget of $100,000; its single venue sat 150 people.
Forty-five years later, Arts Club is Canada’s largest not-for-profit urban theatre company, with a budget of $14 million, three venues (Granville Island Stage, Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage, and the Goldcorp Stage at BMO Theatre Centre), 18 shows per year, and a robust touring arm.
And after all those years at the helm of Arts Club, the 2017-’18 season will be Millerd’s last as artistic managing director.
Millerd is especially proud of the new works that have premiered on Arts Club stages during his tenure, including Sherman Snukal's Talking Dirty; the various incarnations of Mom’s the Word; last year’s juggernaut musical hit Onegin, from Veda Hille and Amiel Gladstone; and, most recently, Anosh Irani’s The Men in White (on now until March 11). “We’ve done slightly over 100 premieres, and I think every one of those, good or bad, are proud moments,” says Millerd, who directed more than 100 plays during his tenure.
Millerd’s final season reinforces this commitment to new Canadian work with three new plays: Thanks for Giving, by Governor General’s Award–winning playwright Kevin Loring; Forget About Tomorrow, by Jill Daum; and Me and You,by Melody Anderson. Also on the schedule: The Humans, Mamma Mia!, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, King Charles III, Jitters, and the gripping conclusion to Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika.
The search for the next Millerd begins immediately. Does he have any advice for his successor? “I think you really have to follow your dream,” he says, after a pause. “You have to trust your instincts. Of course there are always compromises to be made. The budget is the budget, and there are financial constraints – no question about it. But I think you need to be aware of what you want to see on the stage.”
