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Making a scene
The head of UBC's department of theatre, film, and creative writing has voiced concern over the possible closure of the Great Northern Way scene shop , which is set to run out of funding by June. Robert Gardiner told the Straight the 9,000-square-foot shop, which was established in 2004 on the Great Northern Way Campus through a one-time grant, is vital to the city's performing-arts community.

“The space is used for some teaching and we build the UBC School of Opera sets [there]....and the rest of the time we rent out at really small rates,” Gardiner said. Companies such as Touchstone Theatre, Bard on the Beach, Rumble Productions, and Carousel Theatre have all used the facility. “There is no such other space in Vancouver or even in the region,” said Gardiner. “So companies like Electric Company Theatre or Boca del Lupo have nowhere else to build their sets.”

With UBC undergoing a $36-million budget shortfall and a one-time $20-million spending cut, Gardiner said the university is “a little more skittish about committing more” to the scene shop as well as other facilities and programs.

Gardiner has written two grant proposals, both of which have been unsuccessful. He said he is asking for funding from the university's general-purpose operating revenue and is preparing to approach the private sector for donations.

“I'm confident. I hope that's not overoptimistic,” he said. “In principle, the university has been very, very supportive of this. This isn't anybody being a bad guy. It's everybody going, ‘Whoa, all the change has fallen out of my pocket. Now what?'?”

> Jessica Werb

North Van revamp
Members of North Vancouver's arts community have expressed cautious approval of the March 5 decision to create a bimunicipal office of cultural affairs that will serve both the District of North Vancouver and the City of North Vancouver. Until now, the District of North Vancouver's Tourism, Arts, and Cultural Development Coordinator functioned independently of the bimunicipal Arts and Culture Commission of North Vancouver . The Arts and Culture Commission will be dissolved, and the district's arts administration will be incorporated into the new office.

“When you're in a situation when you have two municipalities and you have to get them to work together, sometimes...it causes a little fork in the road,” Lori Phillips , interim director of the Arts and Culture Commission, told the Straight . “I support that they are bringing the management systems properly together so that everybody reports the same way.”

The executive director of the North Vancouver Community Arts Council, Linda Feil , called the change long overdue but cautioned that the district should not expect to save money with the restructuring, which a preliminary report suggested was possible.

“You can't expect to take an industry and give it a higher profile and a more professional level and have it cost less money,” she told the Straight .

> Jessica Werb

Mythic gig
Former Vancouver­ite Corinne Koslo is one of 14 female actors—seven Canadian and seven British—who will perform multiple roles in Margaret Atwood's stage adaptation of her novel The Penelopiad . Peter Hinton will direct this coproduction of the Royal Shakespeare Company and Canada's National Arts Centre. It opens in Stratford, England, in July and will play the NAC in Ottawa in September and October.

> Colin Thomas

High notes
The Vancouver Recital Society has announced its 2007–08 season lineup, with some heavy hitters on the roster. Bass-baritone Bryn Terfel and pianist Emanuel Ax will appear, along with renowned soprano Kiri Te Kanawa, who will kick off the season September 23 at the Orpheum.

> Jessica Werb

Happy endings
Vancouver writer Caroline Adderson took home the $15,000 Marian Engel Award at the sixth annual Writers' Trust Awards on March 7. Adderson was honoured for her body of work, which includes the 2004 novel Sitting Practice and the 2006 short-story collection Pleased to Meet You . Local scribe Catherine Hanrahan also made good, earning $2,000 as a Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize finalist for her 2006 novel Lost Girls and Love Hotels .

In other literary news, the nominees for the B.C. Award for Canadian Non-Fiction were announced Monday (March 12). The four authors in the running for the $25,000 prize include Toronto's Gerta Moray, whose Unsettling Encounters examines First Nations themes in the art of Emily Carr.

> Jessica Werb