The Board of Directors of vAct are so pleased to announce that Anjela Magpantay will be joining us as our next Managing Artistic Director. Anjela’s body of work as a multi- disciplinary artist and creator is truly impressive. Her passion, vision and energy are the perfect catalysts to drive vAct forward as we celebrate our 25th anniversary. A whole-hearted welcome to Anjela!:
Anjela Magpantay (she/her) was an immigrant kid who dared to dream beyond the limits of the box she was handed. She is a multidisciplinary theatre artist, cultural leader, and creative collaborator whose work spans performance, directing, producing, teaching, and devising. With a practice rooted in curiosity, community, and bold storytelling, she has worked nationally and internationally across Canada, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, and the Philippines, creating work that bridges cultures, disciplines, and audiences.
As an artist, Anjela moves fluidly between stage, screen, and interactive media. Selected credits include voicing the Bartender in the Peabody Award-winning video game 1000xRESIST by Sunset Visitor; directing Happy Valley (rice & beans theatre) and Fly, Love (Studio 58); performing in Walking at Night by Myself (Nancy Tam and A Wake of Vultures); the character of North in the short film chattering of sparrows (Ronnie Cheng, Andie Lloyd, and Amélia Simard) the Host in Theatre Conspiracy’s Foreign Radical; and serving as the Vancouver host of Pony Cam Collective’s acclaimed Off-Broadway endurance phenomenon Burnout Paradise. Valuing and supporting grassroots beginnings, she was a proud artist in buto buto:bones are seeds, a collective community creation by the Filipino diaspora, produced by National Pilipino Canadian Cultural Centre (NPC3) and South East Asian Canadian Heritage Society (SEACHS).
A champion of new work and artistic innovation, Anjela recently served as Interim Artistic Director of rice & beans theatre and was Artist-in-Residence for Upintheair Theatre’s Array 2025. She was the COLLIDER Artist-in-Residence with Theatre Replacement (2024–2026), where she developed it is for when you meet me, a new work born from an ongoing exploration of Balikbayan boxes, memory through objects, and bittersweet acceptance.
Deeply committed to artist development and accessible creation, Anjela is both facilitator and participant in Neworld Theatre’s LEAD program, a pioneering initiative that centres neurodivergent artists in collaborative theatre-making. Her own artistic journey was shaped by being the inaugural recipient of Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre’s Emerging Director Award, through which she trained and worked alongside celebrated directors Bobby Garcia, Amiel Gladstone, Meg Roe, and Thomas Morgan Jones.
This July, Anjela Magpantay steps into the role of Managing Artistic Director of Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre (vAct), becoming the first Filipino to lead the organization. She does so with a deep sense of care and responsibility, aware that she is following in the footsteps of her friend and colleague Derek Chan, her mentor Donna Yamamoto, and the late Joyce Lam, whose vision first brought vAct into being. Anjela carries their influence as something lived and remembered—acknowledging that this inheritance is a passing of care, responsibility and imagination for several generations of Asian Canadians. Her work continues to be rooted in the belief that theatre is not only art-making, but community-making: a place where underrepresented voices can be heard, and where new futures can begin.
Anjela’s Artist Statement
“It is with deep honour that I continue the legacy of vAct’s founder Joyce Lam, my mentor Donna Yamamoto, and my dear friend and colleague Derek Chan, and carry forward the living vision of Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre (vAct).
At its heart, vAct is more than a theatre company—it is a powerful idea of possibility, imagination, and belonging. The company creates a space where Asian Canadian artists have long come to be seen not in fragments, but in fullness: in complexity, in creativity, in truth.
In a time of rising economic pressures and ongoing underinvestment in the arts, the sustainability of organizations like vAct depends not only on artistic vision, but on collective care and commitment. I am not alone in seeing vAct as a beacon of possibility and hope. I stand alongside artists, supporters, donors, and audience members who choose—again and again—to build, sustain, and protect the culture we are creating together.
So I invite everyone who has ever been moved by a story, who has laughed, cried, or recognized themselves in the theatre: this is your invitation. Join us in celebrating vAct’s 25th year—and in shaping the next twenty-five years to come. May we continue to grow, to evolve, and to elevate the cultures we carry forward—together.”
