Brian received his training as an actor at Burnaby South High School, Vancouver’s Holiday Theatre, and at the École Lecoq in Paris. Changing his focus to direction and dramaturgy in the mid-1970s, he has since created over a hundred and fifty professional productions for most of the major theatres across Canada as well as theatres in Europe, the United States and Mexico. As dramaturge he has nurtured many of the leading playwrights of his generation. As a teacher he has taught for numerous institutions including McGill, Concordia, Simon Fraser, York, Waterloo and Toronto universities as well as the National Theatre School of Canada.
Brian is the Founding Artistic Director of Saskatoon’s Persephone Theatre, and has also served as A.D. for Montreal’s Playwrights Workshop, Thunder Bay’s Magnus Theatre, and Toronto’s Theatre Passe Muraille. A four-time nominee for Dora Mavor Moore Awards for Outstanding Direction, Brian won this award for his 1988 production of Fire. He has also won Dora Awards for Outstanding Production (Fire, as well as Lillies, 1991). Brian is also the Founder and Producing Artistic Director of Victoria’s Blue Bridge Repertory Theatre (BBRT). Founded in 2009, BBRT is a company that offers the audiences of Victoria and its visitors contemporary visions into the great works from the past, as well as offering early career professional theatre artists the opportunity to work alongside some of the leading theatre practitioners of the day.
Brian has received numerous senior artist grants for his creative work from the Canada, Saskatchewan, Ontario, and Quebec Arts Councils as well as from a broad range of Canadian foundations.