Ivan Habel

Gov­er­nor (British Colum­bia) 2011–2013

Since April 2011, Ivan Habel is gen­eral man­ager for The Bel­fry The­atre, ded­i­cated to pro­duc­ing con­tem­po­rary plays, with an empha­sis on Cana­dian works.  Pre­vi­ously, Ivan was direc­tor of Green Thumb The­atre, a com­pany spe­cial­iz­ing in tour­ing new pro­duc­tions for youth across the coun­try.  Ivan has held var­i­ous arts admin­is­tra­tion posts includ­ing direc­tor of plan­ning and edu­ca­tion at the Strat­ford Fes­ti­val, direc­tor of pro­duc­tion at the Shaw Fes­ti­val and var­i­ous posi­tions with Live Enter­tain­ment includ­ing pro­duc­tion man­ager, tech­ni­cal direc­tor and con­certs pro­duc­tion super­vi­sor.  He has also worked with and for Opera Ate­lier, Cana­dian Stage and the National Arts Cen­tre among oth­ers.  He has worked in or toured into most provinces and inter­na­tion­ally in a vari­ety of art forms.  A grad­u­ate of the National The­atre School of Canada, Ivan’s work has included expe­ri­ence in design and pro­duc­tion as well as man­age­ment posi­tions.  He has served on sev­eral juries for the British Colum­bia Arts Coun­cil, the Canada Coun­cil for the Arts and the City of Van­cou­ver, includ­ing sev­eral multi-disciplinary assess­ment com­mit­tees. Ivan is cur­rently active in advo­cacy efforts for increased and sta­ble fund­ing for artists in BC and par­tic­i­pates on sev­eral com­mit­tees for PACT includ­ing the Labour Rela­tions Com­mit­tee, the Mem­ber­ship Task­force and other activ­i­ties.  He has pre­vi­ously served on the board and exec­u­tive for the Pro­fes­sional Asso­ci­a­tion of Cana­dian The­atres (PACT) and as direc­tor of the Inter­na­tional Per­form­ing Arts for Youth (IPAY) Association.