New managing director of PTE ready to take the stage

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This article was published 10/06/2024 (481 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A longtime Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre marketing and communications executive will soon be packing her desk up for a move to Portage Place, where she will become the new managing director of Prairie Theatre Exchange.

Katie Inverarity will work with both companies throughout the summer to assist with their leadership transitions, and start full time with PTE on Sept. 1.

Inverarity spent the last 11 years working at the RMTC as director of communications and marketing, helping to guide the organization through a transition of artistic leadership and a pandemic.

Prairie Theatre Exchange announced her hiring on June 6.

Originally from the southwestern Ontario town of St. Joachim, Inverarity’s 30-year career in arts management and marketing began with a stint with the Windsor Symphony Orchestra, followed by a stretch spent working on the Canadian première of the musical Rent with Toronto’s Mirvish Productions.

“In young Katie’s life, that was pretty darn exciting,” she says.

Later, Inverarity worked in marketing with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and spent six years at the Canadian Stage Company in Toronto in a leadership role. For two years, Inverarity was the director of sales and marketing at the Toronto landmark Casa Loma.

“My office had a turret in it,” she says.

In 2013, Inverarity was called by Camilla Holland, then the new executive director of RMTC, and shortly thereafter, Inverarity moved to Winnipeg to begin a job with the province’s largest regional theatre company.

Inverarity loved it, she says, but since the earliest stages of her career, she aspired to attain a general leadership position.

“I’ve always had the ambition to become a managing director or executive director. Of all the artforms, theatre is the one I understand and enjoy the most. (This) really felt like a perfect opportunity to continue on my theatre path, to stay in Winnipeg and to take on that leadership role,” she says.

As the new managing director of PTE, Inverarity will replace the outgoing Lisa Li, who in April accepted the role of executive director at Toronto’s Tarragon Theatre. Inverarity will begin working with PTE on a part-time basis June 17.

“We are thrilled about Katie’s appointment as the new Managing Director of PTE,” outgoing artistic director Thomas Morgan Jones and Li said in a PTE release. “She is the perfect person to steward the company into the future. Her extensive and comprehensive experience in record-breaking marketing and audience development is invaluable and will be a game changer to the organization. Her genuine excitement for and dedication to PTE is so clear.”

“She is the perfect person to steward the company into the future … Her genuine excitement for and dedication to PTE is so clear.”– Thomas Morgan Jones and Lisa Li

Inverarity will spend six weeks across July and August working as the interim executive director of the RMTC as Holland – after 13 years in the job – prepares to hand the reins to incoming exec Evan Klassen.

One of Inverarity’s first orders of business for PTE will be to work with the company to guide its search for a new artistic director. Two weeks after Li announced her impending career shift, artistic director Thomas Morgan Jones was hired as the executive artistic director of the English section at the National Theatre School.

Morgan Jones’ and Li’s departures were announced on the heels of a season marred by unfortunate circumstances.

Even as the on-stage product continued to impress – highlights including Donna Michelle St. Bernard’s Diggers, the Joan Didion adaptation The Year of Magical Thinking and the Sharon Bajer-Elio Zarrill0 double act The Outside Inn – PTE dealt with the pressures of financial strain, eliminating key production positions in a company-wide restructuring in the winter.

The moves, while described as necessary for the long-term financial stability of the institution, were heavily criticized, leading to swift and public calls for a shift in leadership strategy. That led to a considerably more conservative budget for the 2024-2025 theatre season, which begins in September with playwright Mark Crawford’s Bed & Breakfast.

With a solid local footing and understanding of Manitoban theatre consumption, Inverarity is a strong hire for PTE, having lived in Winnipeg for over a decade as audience taste and habits have evolved.

This will not be the first time Inverarity is around for a major artistic transition. While working with the RMTC, Inverarity was on-hand for the search for longtime artistic director Steven Schipper’s replacement, which led to the hiring of Kelly Thornton, a move followed by a two-year stretch of pandemic unpredictability.

“At that point in time, we worked really hard with communications, patron services and the fundraising team. Now (RMTC) is seeing the fruits come to bear,” says Inverarity.

That work continues much the same at PTE.

“Do I have a big job ahead of me? 100 per cent, but I’m filled with optimism and hope, and that’s why I took this job,” she says.

“I do feel like we’re building, and PTE has recently been through a bit of a life cycle as all organizations do. I’m going to go in with an open heart and curiosity and start from where we’re at today.”

As a theatre-goer, Inverarity says she has great respect for PTE as an institution and artistic hub. She loves variety on stage, so she won’t single out a specific type of show she enjoys best.

“But as a lifelong marketer, I’m always going to like the ones that have a full audience,” she says.

ben.waldman@winnipegfreepress.cpm