Brian Postalian

Bio

Brian Postalian (Բրայն Փոսթալյան) is an performance creator, educator, and producer born and raised in Toronto/Tkaronto by way of Armenia, Ireland, UK, and the Czech Republic. He works in the Arts & Theatre sector as a highly skilled and sought-after freelance administrator, producer, and educator. As a producer, he has worked on projects locally and nationally across Canada. From small independent theatre companies to mid and large-scale arts organizations and performing arts festivals, he has shaped his career working with community groups and is skilled in facilitation across disparate groups. A passion for live performance that is exemplified in his 10+ year history of making events in public spaces (and often unusual places). As an artist, Brian makes work that reconsiders how we share space together in communal places, blurring the divide between audiences and performers. Their work extends beyond traditional stages and use the communal form as an intervention of the private self in public space. His work is highly collaborative and crosses disciplines from creation, direction, performance, and medium. An ambitious risk taker, a reviewer once described him as “clearly unafraid to try just about anything."

Brian is the founding Artistic Director of Re:Current Theatre which is dedicated to creating work that reimagines gathering. He recently toured their interactive playable performance of New Societies across Ontario, and presented a translated production of the Online version into Mandarin with the National Theatre of Taipei. His work co-creating Access Me with the Boys in Chairs collective was recently published by Playwrights Canada Press as part of Interdependent Magic: Disability Performance in Canada. Brian’s work has been featured on “Best of the Year” lists, received Outstanding Direction (NOW Magazine), Best Production (SummerWorks 2017), and nomination for Outstanding Direction (MyEntertainmentWorld).

He has worked as a curator, producer, and artist with companies across Canada including: Theatre Passe Muraille, Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, Presentation House Theatre, Playwrights Theatre Centre, Common Boots Theatre, Factory Theatre, Crow’s Theatre, Impulse Theatre, potatoCakes_digital, Rumble Theatre, PuSh Festival, Matriarchs Uprising, Paprika Festival, SummerWorks, Magnetic North Festival, Kick & Push Festival, In the Soil Festival, Queer Arts Festival, and many more. Brian has trained with The Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards, the Volcano Theatre Conservatory and was featured in Volcano’s Emerging Artist series along with his colleague Jackie Rowland for their work This is What I Know.

Brian has been a sessional instructor within the School of Performance at Toronto Metropolitan University and has been a guest lecturer at the University of Toronto and Simon Fraser University. He completed a Master of Fine Arts at Simon Fraser University’s School for the Contemporary Arts in Theatre Game Design and Interdisciplinary Performance Studies. In his spare time, he likes to visit used book stores, revisit childhood video games, ride his bicycle, play with his dog Amie, and says that he’s been learning how to draw and play the Armenian duduk for at least eight years but isn’t much better at it now than he was when he started. Brian currently lives on the unceded Coast Salish territory of the Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh and Musqueam Nations (also known as Vancouver, BC).

Brian is a certified facilitator of liz lerman's Critical Response Process.

I am a theatre director, producer, and performance creator. In each sense, I work as a facilitator of language, storytelling, and communitas, using personal history, trauma, and humour to consider how we connect to each other in a shared space. I approach my artistic practices with curiousity, rigour and compassion, and I believe that being silly is something that ought to be taken seriously.

For Hire

Brian produces with some of the most innovative theatre creators, companies, and arts administrators in Canada. He also provides freelance producing, consulting, grant writing, educational workshops and dramaturgical services and is always excited to make new connections. He would love to connect for your next project!

Upcoming

Project	Producer	Role	Date
Industry Series	PuSh Festival	Producer	September 2024-March 2025
Dance in Vancouver	The Dance Centre	Associate Producer	September 2024-November 2024
Flin Flon Cowboy	Flin Flon Cowboy Collective	Producer	May 2023-Now
Creative Hub	Presentation House Theatre	Artistic Associate	June 2023-Now

Portfolio

• All
• Creator
• Performer
• Producer
• Director

Accolades

bpostalian [at] gmail [dot] com