The anvil centre theatre is a state-of-the-art performance space, thoughtfully designed to offer a vibrant and engaging audience experience.
The flexibility of the theatre allows for a diverse offering of performances and genres, from intimate music encounters to dynamic multidisciplinary theatre happenings, immersive dance shows and plays.
The Theatre hosts productions from Savage Society, Patrick Street Productions, a Vancouver Chamber Music Society, Laughter Zone 101, the Arts Club Theatre, the VSO’s Tiny Tots concerts, Royal Canadian Theatre Company, PuSH International Performing Arts Festival and an array of community arts and celebrations.
The theatre has a mandate to provide exciting performance and cultural opportunities for the community to enjoy in the years to come.
For ticket and performance information, please navigate to the events listing, or call +1 604 521 5050.
Have an upcoming event? Discover why the Anvil Centre is the perfect location.
The theatre is a dynamic space that serves many purposes for the community. As a vibrant and diverse performance venue, we’ve established a number of goals established that help determine what will be brought to our audiences each year. The theatre team develops exciting projects and shows to foster a unique reputation and generate a high level of interest among as many people as possible. It is important to us that everyone can access the theatre each year with an array of voices, cultural perspectives and forms at a range of ticket prices and entry points.
The theatre program enables the New Westminster community to thrive, to gather and to create. By collaborating with community arts organizers, and presenting intriguing and eclectic productions from near and far, we invite aesthetic and thematic diversity to the stage and connection with our community. We are building a circle of interest and support that engage audiences with each other and provides energized and curious audiences for all of the theatre’s performances. There are experiences for everyone to be found in our casually elegant space.
The theatre selects professional performances to bring to or develop in the theatre in Anvil Centre, and sometimes beyond. Projects are selected by the Theatre Director to complement established series and performances by organizations who use our theatre. Some are proven audience favourites from afar, and some are developed specifically for our theatre by arts organizations who regularly produce performances. If you are a professional producer, you’re invited to speak to the Theatre Director about your project proposal.
If you have a performance or gathering that requires the theatre, we invite you to get in touch with our Booking Coordinator. Our coordinator will walk you through available dates, rental categories, cost scenarios and discounts, and the other supports we can offer to help make your performance a success. Benefit from the high-quality audience relationships we have built, and get involved with building a larger and more diverse audience for the future.
In an increasingly high-tech and multi-media context, artists and designers need time in theatres to test technical and design plans. The theatre offers a limited number of opportunities for week-long developmental projects each year. Each project selected will receive the theatre and a contribution toward technical staffing. All other costs must be funded by the recipient. The projects should offer some form of public engagement in exchange for this opportunity. Anvil Centre Theatre aims to be the host venue of the future full production, however sometimes that is not possible and we understand that too. Selections are made through submission and dialogue with the theatre department through a continuous intake. We are inviting artists and arts organizations to help us build the performances and audiences of the future.
The theatre is very important to New Westminster’s emerging and established performing arts community. Our citizens are inspired by the achievements of local artists and want to celebrate these talented people in the community. To support this community pride and get behind the dreams of young people who aspire to a life in performance, the theatre is interested in identifying and supporting locally created projects that increase visibility and viability for professional artists living in New Westminster. This is a customizable venue support relationship in which partners must be able to cover their production costs and artistic outcomes must be aligned. Tell the Theatre Director about your aspirations or pitch a project.
Anvil Centre is full of interesting programs and community services. The Centre’s team of programmers works together to increase efficiency and spark collaborative projects. Many of these projects land in the theatre. Artists are always exploring the human experience past, present and future and Anvil Centre program areas have contact points with each of them. Naturally, through words, music, dance, technology and storytelling, projects emerge that intersect with heritage, new media and the explorations of young artists in training. Watch for these particularly rich experiences in which the Anvil Centre programming team levels up with intersectional programming in the theatre.
In the years ahead, the theatre will be developing ongoing relationships with arts organizations and artists who can build sustainable plans to produce in the theatre. Residency contributes to the strength and resiliency of the artistic sector and enables a larger group of interested stakeholders in the community, and in the space, to develop. This program will be developed through community engaged process to ensure it serves the community’s goals and is responsive to a changing and evolving artist and audience base.
The 361-seat, non-proscenium design of the theatre (an open, 270-degree stage) offers a range of staging options for the performing arts.
The theatre has a wooden sprung floor from wall to wall, risers and complete in-stock lighting and sound inventories. Ample, comfortable dressing room spaces, a green room and reception capabilities are all housed in this unique, vibrant space.
The room’s structural design facilitates easily accessible rigging options. Load-ins and lighting hangs are made simple by a state-of-the-art overhead tension grid and mean that no ladders nor lifts are required.
Anvil Centre’s fourth floor is home to a number of studios of various sizes designed to support the arts and your ancillary events for festivals, dance and theatrical performances, residencies and master classes.
Your next performance starts here. We can set up a guided tour, share creative ideas and approaches, answer all your technical questions, and help establish a budget.
To inquire, please submit your requirements using this form. You can also provide additional information using the Attach File feature. We will respond promptly to your request.
For immediate assistance, please call Minna Nikula at 604 636 4448 or email mnikula@anvilcentre.ca.