PuSh Festival Welcomes New Managing Director

Roxanne Duncan will join the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival as the new managing director effective June 2, 2014. 

Duncan joins the PuSh team from The Theatre Centre in Toronto, where she had been the managing director since 2010. Her career began in Edinburgh in 2005 working with Aurora Nova and Paul Lucas Productions. In 2007 she moved to Toronto and worked with Volcano Theatre and Peggy Baker Dance Projects. Since then, Duncan has worked with Toronto companies Acting Up Stage, Company Theatre, Dreamwalker Dance, Soulpepper and Why Not Theatre.

“Roxanne comes to Vancouver with a tremendous range of skills, knowledge and work experiences. She is the perfect complement to what PuSh is embarking upon in the next stage of its life," PuSh Festival's artistic and executive director Norman Armour said in a press release. "Roxanne has been a key figure at The Theatre Centre in building what is an inspiring organization and a leader in the Canadian independent theatre scene—not the least for having just opened a brilliant new facility to cap off a $6.2 million capital campaign."

“Roxanne is coming to the PuSh Festival as we embark on our second decade of bringing innovative and collaborative performing arts to Vancouver,” said Christianne Wilhelmson, the PuSh Festival's President elect and member of the search committee. “As we move our operations into the City of Vancouver-leased cultural amenity space at the CBC Vancouver Broadcast Centre, we are excited that someone with Roxanne's energy and vision will be joining our leadership team and we know she'll help us build on our years of success just as she did with The Theatre Centre in Toronto.”

Duncan joins the thriving $1.8 million organization following its successful 10th anniversary festival in January, and will help usher PuSh into a new period of expansion as it moves to the CBC Broadcast Centre this fall.

She steps into a position previously held by Minna Schendlinger, PuSh's managing director since 2005, who announced her planned departure in November.