Meet the 2023 Winner of the Mallory Gilbert Leadership Award Plus Two Lifetime Honorary Membership Award Winners

After careful review by the Mallory Gilbert Leadership Award committee, the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres (PACT) presents the 2023 Mallory Gilbert Leadership Award (MGLA) to Chris O’Neill, Executive Director of the Ross Creek Centre for the Arts in Canning, Nova Scotia. The Mallory Gilbert Leadership Award celebrates and recognizes annually an individual who has demonstrated outstanding administrative or managerial leadership within the Canadian theatre community. This year, the award also includes two protégés, Marcus Wong from Theatre Nova Scotia and Logan Robins from Unnatural Disaster Theatre. The two protégés, chosen by the Award winner, underline the importance of skills and knowledge transmission in leadership building.

In addition to the Mallory Gilbert Leadership Award, PACT is awarding two Lifetime Honorary Membership Awards to Charles “Chuck” Childs, outgoing General Manager of Centaur Theatre in Montreal, Quebec and Gaylene Buckle, outgoing General Manager of Theatre Newfoundland Labrador.

The 2023 Mallory Gilbert Leadership Award Winner

Chris O’Neill is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Ross Creek Centre for the Arts. Working previously as an actor and playwright, O’Neill co-founded Two Planks and a Passion Theatre with co-founder Ken Schwartz in 1992, developing it with a board from a small two-person operation to a national touring company. Selected Two Planks plays include, Schoolhouse, Macbeth, Nothing Less, Liberation Days, The Tempest and Turn of the Screw, The Miracle Man and Dustbowl Joan, 947, As You Like It and The Iliad, Beowulf, Jerome and Our Town.

Since 2000, O’Neill has been working on Ross Creek Centre for the Arts transforming to from a cattle farm to an international arts centre. O’Neill also teaches acting and inprovisation in various artist programs and has developed arts programs for schools, galleries and marginalized communities. Other Awards include The Queen’s Diamd and Golden Jubilee Medals for her contribution to her community, the Valley Arts Award and the Merritt Award for Best Ensemble for the 2022 production of Schoolhouse.

The 2023 Mallory Gilbert Leadership Award Protégés

The first of two protégés is Marcus Wong from Theatre Nova Scotia. Marcus Wong Jun Wei (he/him) is a passionate individual dedicated to helping build a stronger foundation for the Nova Scotian community through theatre, understanding the current business environment, and building lasting human relationships. Wong graduated from Acadia University in 2020 with a double major in Theatre Studies and History.

He has been part of Theatre Nova Scotia's administrative team since 2021, managing various projects and industry-led initiatives to strengthen the theatre sector's resilience and flexibility during COVID and helping with advocacy efforts ever since. Aside from his work as an actor and assistant director at Acadia, he has also directed shows in Hong Kong and Canada. His recent directing credits include Knitting and Other Lifehacks (Spin-a-Yarn Productions) and The Story of Two Girls with the Same Name (Kamiscene Theatre). He is interested in deepening the conversations within the performing arts scene here in the province and is thrilled to be a part of Theatre Nova Scotia to support our local communities.

The second protégé is Logan Robins from The Unnatural Disaster Theatre Company. Robins (he/they) is a queer environmental theatre maker, improviser, puppeteer, educator, musician, writer, sound designer, and creator of exhaustive lists- most recently based in the Sipekne'katik region of Mi’kma’ki (colonially known as Dartmouth, Nova Scotia).

Logan is the co-founder and Artistic Director of The Unnatural Disaster Theatre Company, with whom they create immersive, sustainable, and accessible theatre- including most recently an amphibious musical that they wrote/directed/produced called Hippoposthumous- which toured around Nova Scotia and PEI in the summer of 2022! Other recent credits include as an actor/improviser in Outside the March’s production of The Ministry of Mundane Mysteries- an adventurous theatrical experience that takes place over the phone! Logan also just wrapped up an eight month international puppetry tour of It’s Okay to be Different with The Mermaid Theatre of Nova Scotia.

The PACT Honorary Lifetime Membership Award Winners

This year, PACT is awarding two Lifetime Honorary Membership Awards to Charles “Chuck” Childs and Gaylene Buckle.

Buckle, now retired, was the General Manager of Theatre Newfoundland Labrador (TNL) serving the company from 1995 to 2023. Buckle is well known for her contribution to theatre within Newfoundland and Labrador. As well, Buckle was the 2018 winner of the Mallory Gilbert Leadership Award. Prior to her winning the Mallory Gilbert Leadership Award, Buckle served as PACT’s region representative for Newfoundland and Labrador for ten years, spent six years as Vice-President as well as serving on the Membership committee. Buckle was one of the early advocates for opening up the membership to Affiliates, instrumentally changing the face of PACT itself.

Chuck Childs is the outgoing General Manager for Centaur Theatre, based in Montreal. After a 45-year tenure ending in June 2023, Childs’ career has been marked by tireless advocacy for his artistic community with PACT. Childs played a central role in the negotiation of the first PACT/APASQ (Association des professionnels des arts de la scène du Québec) collective agreement. He taught Production Management at The National Theatre School for 20 years and has lectured at Concordia University and McGill University.

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