An award-winning playwright and director are the co-artistic directors of the 2020 Liverpool International Theatre Festival, chairperson Jean Robinson-Dexter announced today.
Vic Mills and Neil Maidman, with Blackwood Little Theatre in Wales, will share the duties for the 15th biennial festival, which is set for the historic Astor Theatre in Liverpool, Nova Scotia, from Oct. 15-18, 2020.
Mills was honoured with the outstanding original script award at the 2018 festival, while Maidman was nominated as best director for their stirring production The Ruins of Talgarth. The play also won the people’s choice award.
Mills and Maidman have more than 50 years’ combined experience in international, professional and community productions, theatre education and administration.
“We are so proud to have been given the privilege of this role,” Maidman says. “We love this event and this place. We’ll help make this a feast of theatre.”
Mills and Maidman have been to LITF many times, with Blackwood Little in 2008, 2012 and 2018. Maidman also directed a production by Liverpool’s Winds of Change Dramatic Society at the 2010 festival.
“We are driven by the challenge of garnering top practitioners from around the world to the South Shore of Nova Scotia for this wonderful, wonderful festival,” Mills says.
The Liverpool International Theatre Festival welcomes amateur theatre productions from around the world every two years. The 2018 festival was its most successful yet, featuring troupes from Egypt, Iran, Peru, Wales, Nepal, Mexico, Bangladesh and Liverpool, N.S. Attendance in 2018 also broke records.
Chairperson Jean Robinson-Dexter says LITF 2020 promises to bring more compelling international theatre to Liverpool that audiences will love.
“The LITF executive were very excited to receive an application from Neil and Vic and were impressed with their thoughtful vision for the 2020 festival. We’re all excited to be working with them over the next year. Our team is looking forward to welcoming the world back to Liverpool.”
For more information, please contact:
Jean Robinson-Dexter, chairperson, LITF 2020 – 902-354-2397; admin@litf.ca
Bio information for Neil Maidman and Vic Mills available here