Local talent dominates Arts Club Theatre Company’s 2016-17 season

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One-quarter of the plays that make up The Arts Club Theatre Company's next season are written by local playwrights, and 95 per cent of the season's shows will be directed by locals (or, in the case of Kim Collier and Roy Surette, former Vancouverites). The company announced its 2016-17 season on Wednesday, featuring four plays by Vancouver playwrights and 12 local directors.

Plays written by locals include The Men in White by Anosh Irani; Mom's the Word 3: Nest ½ Empty by the Mom's the Word Collective; The Day Before Christmas by Stacey Kaser and Alison Kelly; and The Piano Teacher by Dorothy Dittrich. All are world premieres.

The Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage will open with Ken Ludwig's Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery, directed by John Murphy, who started as an actor with The Arts Club and says the company has "nurtured" him into directing. "It's a great feeling to have that kind of support," he states in the season announcement news release. Baskerville is his fourth show as a director with the company.

The Granville Island Stage will open with Annie Baker's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama The Flick, directed by Vancouver's Dean Paul Gibson. And the new, smaller theatre space – the Goldcorp Stage at BMO Theatre Centre – will open with The Day Before Christmas, with another Vancouverite, Chelsea Haberlin, directing her first show for the company (she has worked as assistant director on others).

Emerging director Kevin Bennett also helms his first production for The Arts Club, Robert Askins's Hand to God at the Goldcorp Stage.

Other season highlights include Tony Kushner's Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches, directed by Ms. Collier, who won the Siminovitch Prize in 2010. It will be at The Stanley in spring, 2017. And what has become a Vancouver holiday favourite, Mary Poppins, will be at the Stanley. It will be directed by the company's long-time artistic managing director Bill Millerd.