“Drama does come with the territory”: Tarragon Theatre’s Andrea Vagianos on the LMJH Award and the challenges of live theatre right now

During ‘precedented’ times, this was the time of year when theatregoers would ready themselves for the start of a new theatre season’s fresh programming. With rising vaccination rates, the turn of the calendar to September is inspiring a familiar anticipation. Live theatre is back. Behind their masks, theatregoers are breathing sighs of relief and awaiting the thrill of once again being ushered to their seats. 

Like the pivot to digital performance during the shutdown, the resumption of live theatre is largely thanks to the strategic vision of arts executives like Andrea Vagianos, who has been Managing Director of Tarragon Theatre (Artistic Director Richard Rose) since the spring of 2018. At the 2021 Dora Ancillary Awards virtual presentation in June, the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts (TAPA) awarded Vagianos the Leonard McHardy and John Harvey Award for Outstanding Leadership in Administration (LMJH Award), in order to honour her talents as an astute and resilient community builder, strategic planner and financial manager. The annual LMJH Award honours the work of senior theatre, dance and opera administrators who have devoted at least ten years to the performing arts and have positively impacted the industry in Toronto. As the LMJH laureate, Vagianos named Danielle Parris, a Toronto-based arts manager, researcher and writer as the recipient of the Victor C. Polley Protégé Award.

Over nearly three decades, Vagianos has held a variety of positions on both the producing and funding sides of the arts industry:

• As Managing Director for Tarragon Theatre, she has maintained the theatre’s organizational and financial stability through the company’s presentation of digital and audio art last year. 
• Prior to joining Tarragon, she spent more than eight years as Managing Director of Toronto Dance Theatre (TDT) (2010-2018 with Artistic Director Christopher House). In her final season, she oversaw an 11-city national tour and a 2-week tour of Colombia for TDT’s 50th anniversary – and left the company in one of the strongest financial positions in its history.
• Before this, Vagianos spent six years as Managing Director of Dancemakers (2000 – 2005 with Artistic Director Serge Bennathan).
• She also worked in the public sector as Acting Arts Education Officer at the Ontario Arts Council (2006 -07); and was General Manager of The School of Toronto Dance Theatre (2007-09) before moving on to TDT.
• A passionate advocate for the arts and active community leader, Vagianos has also volunteered on numerous arts boards over the years, including seven years on the board of TAPA, the last three of which she served as President.

Throughout this diverse career, she has been a champion of the arts and a caring administrator who mentors and develops staffs in creative and compassionate ways. 

SesayArts Magazine had the pleasure of speaking with Vagianos about her current role at the Tarragon Theatre, the personal and professional significance of the LMJH Award, and her hope for live arts in the post-pandemic era.

SM: Many theatregoers might not know all that has to take place for a production to get on the stage, how a season is put together or all that needs to happen for a theatre to function.  Let’s start with learning about your role as Managing Director of Tarragon Theatre and what that entails. 

AV: Wow. That’s a big question. The best way to explain it is that in addition to overseeing all aspects of producing our season of shows, I’m responsible for the overall business management of the theatre, working in close collaboration with the Artistic Director and our team. So this means I manage/oversee:

• the finances, including earned (ticket sales) and raised funds (from individuals, corporations and foundations), that keep the theatre operating; 
• all grant-writing and government relations; 
• board relations and governance, which has to do with legal operations of the organization; 
• labour relations for artists and staff; 
• the marketing and communications strategies and delivery for all our artistic and community programming;
• all education and community engagement initiatives with the school communities as well as our subscribers and patrons;
• facility management, since we are a venued theatre (in fact, I’ve run venued theatres since I’ve been in general management);
• and, of particular importance to me, community relations and ensuring we are connected to and actively participating in our neighbourhood and performing arts community.

SM: Congratulations on receiving the Leonard McHardy and John Harvey Award for Outstanding Leadership in Administration (LMJH) Award)! What does it mean for you personally, and what do you want it to mean for you professionally?

AV: Thank you so much! I feel very fortunate to have received this award at this incredibly challenging moment in the world, when all my peers and colleagues have been working so diligently to continue creating art in new (e.g. outdoors, live-streamed, digital) ways, since our theatres closed last March 2020. 

What’s more, I’ve known Leonard and John since I started in the business as an Arts Management Intern at the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres (PACT) in 1990! I’m old enough to remember Theatre Books at all its locations. So it’s particularly meaningful to me to receive this award from them, given their longstanding commitment to our community. And I also remember Elizabeth Comper, whose husband Tony Comper continues to support this award. She was an incredible theatre enthusiast. 

It’s just a tremendous honour. I am grateful for the recognition, and inspired, both by the award and by the tireless efforts of my peers, who are all working passionately on behalf of our performing arts community, especially as we plan to resurface post-pandemic. 

SM: What would you like us to know about your protégée Danielle Parris, and why you chose her as the recipient of the Victor C. Polley Protégé Award?

AV: Mentorship is hugely important to me, so I was very excited to learn about this aspect of the LMJH award, supported by the Polley family. This is only the second year it has been offered, as I understand it. 

I met Danielle through my role on the Program Advisory Committee at Centennial College’s Arts Management Program; Danielle had also participated in a Centennial group project with Tarragon’s Development department. I was immediately struck by the spirit and commitment she brings to her work, and to ensuring that we as a sector are creating room for those voices that are not currently at the table. Danielle is a compassionate and dedicated arts professional, with a particular interest in arts education – my own roots in our community, and an ongoing passion of mine. I have no doubt that she will make an enormous contribution to our field.

SM: I have been asking a lot of artists about life during the pandemic: how they have been taking care of themselves and how they have remained creative in the time of shutdown. As I write to you, most of us have had at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, and are feeling cautiously optimistic about reopening, restarting and resuming. So I would like to ask you about looking forward, as an experienced arts administrator and arts advocate. What are you most looking forward to? And what changes do you feel the arts should make going forward?

AV: As I write this, I have just received my second dose, and so am thinking very personally about the privilege of the double vaccination and the opportunities that come with reopening society. It is also the eve of July 1^st, and it is impossible to hear of the discoveries of children’s bodies on the sites of residential schools – long expected by our Indigenous communities – without facing the realities of our treatment of Indigenous peoples. We don’t create art in a vacuum divorced from the society in which we live; it’s just the opposite. When we resume live performances, we need to consider the stories we are telling and for whom. We want to create theatre ensuring all our spaces and practices – from rehearsals to the audience experience – are safe, respectful and inclusive for everyone, our artists, staff and patrons. 

SM:  Looking at your bio on the Tarragon Theatre website and the detailed press release that was shared with me, it seems like you’ve done it all, but maybe not. Is there something you want to explore that you haven’t yet? 

AV: I’ve been so lucky to be able to do what I love doing, and for all these years. I’m a true generalist (“jack of all trades, master of none”); I love dance and theatre, and have worked in opera and visual art too. Each of these art forms has drawn me in, and offered me something unique to experience and reflect on, whether theatrically, musically or visually. It’s been my passion to share these experiences with my colleagues and fellow-audience members these many years.

I think I can honestly say that after COVID, what I want to do is return to the collective experience of enjoying art together, with others in person. Beyond that, I hope to share whatever knowledge I’ve accumulated these last 30 years, and to continue my own journey of learning and unlearning, with the knowledge and understanding we have today, in this moment in the world.

And I will admit, I’m hoping for a slightly less pressured work environment. 

But we are in the business of making theatre, after all, and drama does come with the territory…

©Arpita Ghosal, SesayArts Magazine, 2021