New team to lead Essential Collective Theatre
Niagara theatre veterans Colin Bruce Anthes and Rebecca Walsh are taking the reins of Essential Collective Theatre.
Anthes, a longtime ECT board member and collaborator with Stolen Collective theatre, will replace Monica Dufault, who leaves this month to take over as artistic director of Carousel Players.
Anthes says he’s “honoured” to continue a tradition started by ECT founders Stephanie Jones and Jason Cadieux, and later Dufault.
“As an artist who calls Niagara home, it means the world to be chosen to carry their work forward.”
Anthes is a St. Catharines theatre educator with a master’s degree in philosophy from Brock University and diploma in theatre performance from Humber College. He has performed for more than a dozen theatre and film companies.
Walsh, who has spent much of the past decade in administration at the Shaw Festival, will take over as ECT’s general manager. Among local theatre, she has worked for Suitcase in Point, Carousel Players and Lyndesfarne Theatre Projects, along with the annual In the Soil Arts Festival.
“I just feel really lucky to be in the ideal time and place for growth in the arts,” she says. “With the infusion of culture in downtown St. Kitts, the time is ripe for an established theatre company to spread its wings.
“Monica has been heading in that direction, and Colin is absolutely the right person to continue.”
Dufault has fronted ECT since 2014, and is leaving to replace Jessica Carmichael as artistic director of Carousel Players. Her ties with ECT will continue for another two months, however, directing the production of Our Lady of Delicias (Feb. 23 to March 4) after assembling the cast and crew.
“I look forward to directing my final show with the company in February,” she said in a statement, “and am thrilled to know that ECT will be in the very capable hands of Colin Bruce Anthes and Rebecca Walsh.”