Caravan Farm Theatre

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Caravan Farm Theatre is a professional outdoor theatre company based on an 80 acre farm, 11Km NW of Armstrong, British Columbia, in Canada's North Okanagan Valley. The property was purchased in 1979 to function as a stud farm and base from which to launch the horse drawn touring productions of the Caravan Stage Company,headed by Paul Kirby and Adreanna (Nans) Kelder.

Originally formed in 1970 as a puppet troupe touring Vancouver Island and named "The Little People's Caravan", its name was changed to The Caravan Stage Company in 1975. In 1984, Kirby and Kelder went, with horse and wagons, on a three-year tour of the western United States, culminating at Expo 86. Company member Nick Hutchison, (son of English acting legend Dame Peggy Ashcroft), remained behind and founded the Caravan Farm Theatre, with an emphasis on agrarian values as opposed the more peripatetic goals of the Stage Company.

In 1993, Kirby and Kelder began to build an 80ft sailing vessel adapted to live theatre. They presently tour up and down the eastern seabord, and recently throughout Europe, performing original Canadian theatre with a particular activist, political bent under the name of the Caravan StageBarge.

Meanwhile, under the leadership of Artistic Director Nick Hutchinson, Caravan Farm Theatre began producing a mix of original and classic works for local audiences, often utilising the skills of actors, designers, musicians and technicians who lived on or near the Spallumcheen County property.

In 1989 the company harnessed the motive power of their Clydesdales and began staging the hugely popular winter sleigh ride show. Nick stepped down in 1993 and was replaced by an interim group, who in 1994, installed composer/writer Allen Cole as artistic director. When Allen stepped down in 1998, Estelle Shook and Jennifer Brewin ran the company as co-artistic directors, staging a mix of adaptations and original works. In August of 2005, Jennifer Brewin stepped down as co-artistic director; Estelle Shook continues on as the sole artistic and managing director of Caravan Farm Theatre.

This ongoing and unique theatrical experiment is impossible to understand outside of its genesis as part of the counter-cultural, "back to the land", communal movement which blossomed, particularly in North America, amongst young people in the 1960s and 1970s. As an "intentional community", it has consistently invested in the values of Western horse, or "cowboy", culture as well as non-hierarchical organizational and social structures. Unlike many experimental "communes" of the era, though, the Farm Theatre has survived the impulse, commitment and eventual retirement of many of its founding members and thrives under the direction of a new generation of artists.

The productions at the Caravan Farm Theatre are always presented outdoors in site-specific locations, and are traditionally both populist and based in literary tradition. Many are musicals or utilise distinct musical elements. Audiences for the five-week summer show runs consistently sell-out, often performing to over 500 patrons nightly.

Many noted Canadian theatre artists have contributed to Farm productions over many years, perhaps most notably Vancouver favourite Peter Anderson, now star of the internationally acclaimed CanStage production of The Overcoat, as well as director/playwright Peter Hinton, newly appointed Artistic Director of Canada's National Arts Centre's English Theatre in Ottawa.