Fay Nass Steps In as New Artistic Director of the frank theatre company

Fay Nass. | Image: the frank theatre company.

the frank theatre company announced December 18 that Fay Nass is assuming the role of artistic director. Chris Gatchalian, the previous artistic director, stepped down from the Vancouver-based company in December. 

"Fay comes to the frank having demonstrated skill and vision as a writer and director in professional theatre," the frank, Vancouver’s only explicitly mandated professional queer theatre company, said in a release. "However, perhaps most impressive about Fay is her personal and professional commitment to facilitating critical conversations about how race, place, gender, and sexuality intersect. We look forward to working with Fay as she curates community and professional theatre programming that invites audiences to contemplate the oppressive and liberatory potential of different ways of seeing and doing diversity."

Nass, originally from Iran, has been a resident of Vancouver for the past eighteen years and has been working as a director, devisor, producer and theatre maker for the past twelve years. Fay holds a Master of Fine Arts in Theatre from Simon Fraser University School for the Contemporary Arts. Her connection with the frank extends back to 2016, when she served as curator and director of the company's Pink Line project, a commentary on race and politics.

“I am ecstatic to be joining the Company, an organization I truly care about, and believe is fundamental for this city," says Nass, who was a panelist at the BC Alliance's 2017 conference, REVOLUTION, on the subject of cultural diversity in artistic practice. "I remember discovering Screaming Weenie/the frank in 2001, shortly after moving to Vancouver from Tehran. It empowered me, knowing that there is a company representing the lives and stories of queer people. I am excited to continue making the frank an active and contributing part of Vancouver’s ecology.”

Update: a previous version of this post erroneously stated that Nass would assume the role later in January.