![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/JuliusCaesar-2.jpg\")
<\/a>\u201cIf we were in a place that was very different, okay, what would that look like? Perhaps it would mean that we would have to change some of what we do,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Pickett looks back fondly on the 16 years GVSF was at Camosun, saying the college grounds offered the reliability that the fest needed behind the scenes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have had so many great opportunities at Camosun; the facility we had at Camosun was great, and knowing that we had that year after year allowed us to plan, allowed us to have some continuity, some stability there,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Camosun executive director of communications and marketing Rodney Porter says that the two reasons the GVSF could no longer hold the festival at Lansdowne\u2014the construction and the restrictions\u2014are both temporary, and he says that the college simply can\u2019t have crowds right now.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight now, only up to 10 people can gather,\u201d says Porter, \u201cand it has to be the same people, as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also says that the construction at Wilna Thomas would get in the way of the fest\u2019s operations.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Greater Victoria Shakespeare Festival has used power outlets [and] washroom facilities in the Wilna Thomas building, so that would render it unavailable to them for this year, and looking ahead to next year, that\u2019s always a possibility,\u201d he says. \u201cWe\u2019re always open to future possibilities.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pickett says the GVSF is waiting until BC announces what\u2019s happening with the public health orders until they go public with the new location and further details about the festival this year, but she says the new locations are in Esquimalt and Saanich.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we\u2019re looking for at the heart is really a partnership,\u201d says Pickett. \u201cSomewhere we can be where, you know\u2026 that really wants to have a Shakespeare festival.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pickett says that because of COVID, the GVSF is looking at doing one show rather than multiple shows this year, but due to the public health orders on gatherings, she doesn\u2019t know yet if it can even happen at all.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe really hope that we can do it,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Porter says the college is hoping to be able to host events for the community when it can. He says that the renovations to Wilna Thomas will hopefully be complete, for the most part, by the end of this fiscal year\u2014March 31, 2022\u2014or sometime next summer. Picket is open to going back to Camosun, should that day come, and says that the college looked at them as good dependable renters.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were our landlords, essentially, and that was great,\u201d she says. \u201cIf they were to reach out to us and say, \u2018Oh, actually, we would value you coming back,\u2019 I would certainly be interested in talking to them about that, for sure, but I can\u2019t wait for that to happen. We have to be proactive.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Greater Victoria Shakespeare Festival (GVSF) won\u2019t be held at Camosun College this year. The festival, which was postponed last year due to COVID, has been held annually in the area between Wilna Thomas and the Dunlop House at the college\u2019s Lansdowne campus. However, due to construction at Wilna Thomas as well as COVID-19 restrictions, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17776,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-webexclusive"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21090"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21090\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21091,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21090\/revisions\/21091"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}