Not everyone gets crooner Amanda Wood and community chorus Burstin' with Broadway to play their 10th birthday party.
The Kay Meek Centre turns 10 years old on Nov. 6, an occasion slated to be celebrated with musicians, singers and performers.
For author Grant Lawrence, the Kay Meek Centre was that lot where his classmates at West Vancouver secondary would take smoke breaks in the 1980s. More than 20 years later, Lawrence won a B.C. Book Prize for Adventures in Solitude at the Kay Meek.
When writer and actress Taylor Hill was looking for sets for her microbudget dance contest mockumentary Leap 4 Your Life, she chose to shoot at her family house, her neighbour's houses, and the Kay Meek Centre.
West Vancouver's stage has played many parts over the last decade, serving as host to political debates, musical performances, and countless theatre productions.
Many of those moments will be commemorated Nov. 6. "There'll be lots of memories and celebration," remarks the centre's executive director Jeanne LeSage. The theatre is unique in Metro Vancouver, according to LeSage.
"If you think about other players in town: Arts Club, PuSh festival, these were started by artistic directors," she says. "But this is very much an organization started by a committed group of community members who were passionate about bringing very, very strong professional work to West Van."
Hired in March, LeSage is well-aware of the theatre's history and its place in the community.
"For me, I feel like I'm the caretaker of this beautiful vision," she says.
The 498-seat venue is the realization of philanthropist Kay Meek's vision. Meek championed a theatre that would include an educational component for young people. After her initial $1 million donation, the West Vancouver school district proposed the site adjacent to West Vancouver secondary for the arts centre. Meek reached deep into her pocket again during the building's construction.
Meek died on Nov. 6, 2004 at the age of 98.
The centre hosted its first public performance the same day.
LeSage's route from the University of Toronto's drama program to the inner workings of the West Vancouver theatre was a long one. However, her decision to go from the stage to backstage was quick.
"We're not all made to be performers," she says.
When discussing her work, LeSage stresses the need to co-ordinate and communicate: "And then you plan, plan, plan, plan, plan, plan, plan, plan," she says.
Organization is part of her nature, but in travels that have taken her from a film festival in Abu Dhabi to an opera house in Oman, she's never strayed far from theatre.
"There was something about the orchestrating backstage and the organizing, but still being very much a part of the creative process, that's very, very exciting."
Working abroad was a great challenge, but after years spent in apartments outfitted by Ikea and a working life devoted to other people's ideas, she felt the urge to return to Canada.
"It was just time to come home," she says. "You just sort of realize you want to personally and professionally put down roots and grow and build something and know that you can work towards something for longer than a year."
The theatre's future will be marked by continuing to mentor youth, according to LeSage. That includes opportunities for young actors to meet an accomplished thespian like Nicola Cavendish.
"I'd like to really see how much more we can do," LeSage says.
LeSage speaks rapidly in conversation, but the theatre will remain relevant if she and artist director Claude Giroux perform one simple act. "Just keep listening," she says.
