One of North Shore community theatre’s brightest lights celebrated her birthday this summer in fitting style: onstage in her own backyard surrounded by friends and family.
If the name Anne Marsh springs to mind, you guessed right.
Immersed for more than 40 years in community theatre from Deep Cove Stage to Theatre West Van, Anne’s closest affiliation is with Hendry Hall, home to the North Vancouver Community Players.
Since Anne and her late husband Don joined the Players in the ’70s, she has served as producer and publicist, and won awards for sound design and performance.
Anne is a past-president of North Vancouver Community Players and Theatre B.C. This year her contribution to community service was recognized with Theatre B.C.’s Diamond Award. She served as festival administrator of the 2016 North Shore Zone Festival of Plays, which offers the Don Marsh Award “in recognition of creating a spirit of harmony among groups on the North Shore.”
Not one to rest on her laurels, Anne is producing the next play at the Theatre at Hendry Hall, The Mystery of Irma Vep, a gothic melodrama with a host of characters, all played by two actors. Backstage will be a frenzy of costume changes; onstage, hilarity will reign.
Born in England, Anne Browning was nine when the Second World War came to an end, old enough then to remember today the gas mask that was her constant companion, and the Morrison table, the indoor bomb shelter installed in her Brighton home.
Anne was in her early 20s when she made her way to Swinging London and in her late-20s when she joined the Ten Pound Pom brigade, the Assisted Passage Migration Scheme devised to encourage immigration to Australia and New Zealand.
Anne’s homeward journey after work and travel through the Antipodes took her to Canada by way of New York City and a rendezvous with her faithful suitor, Don.
Married Sept. 19, 1969, Anne and Don had 17 years together, most of them in their Lynn Valley home and with a welcome addition to their family, in the person of a foster daughter named Kori.
“It’s funny how your eye is drawn to the important things,” says Anne. “Every day on the bus to work I would see this sign about the need for foster parents. One day I came home and talked with Don and that’s how our daughter Kori came into our lives.”
Although Kori works abroad in the travel industry, she and Anne continue to share the house together with Branston and Fergal, their canine companions.
The dogs opened a door into the natural world for Anne. Their weekend outings attracted fellow walkers, with and without dogs.
Anne sends out the weekly hike location, and the all-important post-hike coffee destination and off they go, size of the pack ranging from two on up.
Her annual Duffus Memorial Hike and Cream Tea blends hikers and thespians from the Players, just one example of Anne’s ability to bring people together, a gift that cannot be taught, only shared.
Not only does Anne tour the local hills, she travels the world. A recent trip to Australia and New Zealand was an opportunity to revisit the time, some 40 years ago, when she took her first steps onto the world’s stage.
Always happy to return home, “Vancouver offers everything I could possibly want in life,” Anne admits that at this time in her life, she will choose travel over her community theatre commitments. Just now, however, there are no immediate plans to head off into the wide world.
Fall is a busy time in the life of a theatre. At Hendry Hall, one play is in performance, another in rehearsal and planning is underway for the Christmas pantomime.
Then there’s publicity for October productions from Theatre West Van: Arsenic and Old Lace and from Deep Cove Stage: Ten Times Two, The Eternal Courtship.
Hendry Hall, 815 East 11th St., is hosting an Open House on Friday, Sept. 30 from 7 to 9 p.m., as part of North Shore Culture Days, a chance to explore the world of community theatre on the North Shore, and to meet Anne Marsh, the North Shore’s maven of mingling, in person.
Laura Anderson works with and for seniors on the North Shore. 778-279-2275 [email protected]
