On February 2, 2011, a sixth-floor walk-up with a skylight and no furniture opened for business on Rosstown Road. It belonged to Corie and Paul Bratter, married six days, and it was built for the Nanaimo Theatre Group's production of Neil Simon's Barefoot in the Park at the Bailey Studio. Set designer Roger Lappin and set dresser Lyn Strand had recreated the early 1960s in the decor, and costume designer Sheila Bowman had gone through the group's costume closet, remaking clothes for the period: slimmer suits, higher collars, skinnier ties. "It means the thrift stores have been gleaned of everything that's cool," she told the Nanaimo News Bulletin.
The room the audience sat in that night has its own history. The Bailey Studio in Nanaimo is a 172-seat community theatre at 2373 Rosstown Road, owned and run by the Nanaimo Theatre Group. It started as a run-down building with room for a parking lot, and the group spent the better part of a decade turning it into a stage.
From a miner's shack to a theatre
The Nanaimo Theatre Group traces its start to June 1961, when Roger Desprez and his wife Barbara, with others, revived a drama club in the city. According to a 2015 Bulletin history, newspapers called it the Nanaimo Drama Group or the Nanaimo Drama Club at first, and only that November did local media settle on Nanaimo Theatre Group.
For its first decade the group had no home. "We would perform every place we could," Desprez recalled. "We tried the basement of the old library. We tried the Malaspina Hotel. Eventually we tried to do musicals in Beban Park, but they only lasted for so long because the acoustics were so bad and the hard chairs were beginning to bother people."
In 1970 the search for a building began. The group looked at the old Orange Crush building and the Capitol Theatre, but both would have cost too much to renovate. Then members heard about a small building on Rosstown Road with no toilet, no proper heating and a lot of junk inside. "It was a miners shack," Desprez said. "Then it was turned into an independent preparatory school." Its selling point was practical: "For one thing, it had an area for parking lots. That was very important."
A miner's shack is an apt origin for a theatre in a town that was built on coal, dug from the Snuneymuxw seam of 1852 onward.
Building the studio, step by step
In 1971 the group took out a bank loan and took possession of the building, according to the Bulletin's 2015 account. For a couple of years it served as a rehearsal hall with the occasional performance. "We made a little theatre out of it in the lounge," Desprez said. A few years later an $8,000 grant paid for an improved stage, a small seating area and lighting. "It has been step by step, bit by bit," long-time member Joanne Husband told the paper.
The dates do not line up perfectly across sources. The Bulletin gives 1971 for the acquisition. Other accounts of the building give different years, and the question stays open here.
What is not in doubt is the opening of the renovated space. In 1980 the group staged its first production there, Ibsen's A Doll's House, in a room named after long-time supporter Ivy Bailey. A 2011 Bulletin piece on the group's 50th anniversary describes how the expansion worked: the building's original performance space became the lobby, and the building was expanded around it, with dressing rooms with lighted mirrors, a kitchen, a concession, a green room and a sewing area. If you arrive early for a show, the lobby you wait in is the room where the group first played to an audience on Rosstown Road.
Desprez stayed with the group for more than 60 years. His 2021 obituary says he designed and built more than 90 sets, worked as an award-winning director, and was heavily involved in the acquisition, design and construction of the Bailey Studio. He taught biology at Nanaimo District Senior Secondary School for 30 years, sat on a community design committee in the early stages of the Port Theatre project and advised on the design of the Malaspina Theatre at Vancouver Island University. His celebration of life was held at the Bailey Studio on November 6, 2021.
Barefoot in the Park, February 2011
The 2011 production ran from February 2 to 19, with evening shows at 8 p.m. and matinees at 2 p.m. on February 6 and 13. Tickets cost $16 to $18. Director Sherri McLean chose to keep the play in 1963, the year it was written, and the cast followed suit. Amber Lochead played Corie and Derek Spalding played Paul. Bowman doubled as Corie's mother, Ethel. Nick Schols played the Casanova-like Victor Velasco, and the small comic part of the telephone repairman was split between Robb Mowbray and George Compton.
Keeping the period had a cost, Bowman said, because some of the script's assumptions show their age. "There's no mention of Corie working," she noted. Her view was that the play holds up anyway: "The play doesn't change – the audience changes. The audience's perception is what keeps it alive."
The script had a long life before it reached Nanaimo. On Broadway, Barefoot in the Park opened at the Biltmore Theatre on October 23, 1963, directed by Mike Nichols, with Elizabeth Ashley as Corie and Robert Redford as Paul. It closed on June 25, 1967, after 1,530 performances, and Nichols won the 1964 Tony Award for direction. Redford played Paul again in the 1967 film, opposite Jane Fonda.
Two months after the run closed, the group marked its 50th anniversary with a celebration on April 16, 2011. The Bulletin's notice put its output at four to five shows a year, including the traditional Christmas pantomime, and noted that the group regularly entered the North Island zone drama festival, often earning a place at the provincial mainstage festival in the summer.
What a season at the Bailey Studio looks like now
The current pattern is close to the one described in 2011. The 2025-26 season opened with Peter Quilter's Glorious, a comedy about the socialite Florence Foster Jenkins, who sang with no singing ability, from October 16 to November 2, 2025. Mary Littlejohn's Poetry in Motion opened on November 1, then the pantomime Jack and the Beanstalk from December 18 to 31, with a preview on December 14 raising money for the Nanaimo Hospital Foundation. Jaclyn Backhaus's Men on Boats ran from February 18 to March 8, 2026, and Lee Blessing's hostage drama Two Rooms closed the season on May 10. The group moved its evening curtain to 7:30 p.m. that season and folded taxes and fees into its ticket prices.
For 2026-27, the group's website lists the pantomime Humpty Dumpty, written and directed by Ann Gogo, from December 18 to 31, 2026; the musical The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, directed by Mary Littlejohn, from February 21 to March 13, 2027; and Christine Quintana's As Above, directed by Amanda Wagner, from April 25 to May 15, 2027. Pantomime audiences are asked to bring no child younger than three.
The building is still changing. The group has installed solar panels on its roof with the help of BC Hydro rebates for commercial customers, and it credits the Nanaimo Foundation's Stanley De Vos Fund with supporting that project and a new projector. Between shows the studio does other work: the group rents out costumes and props, has collected food and money for Loaves and Fishes at dress rehearsals, and hosted Portal Players' production of Blackbird after the Theatre BC North Island Zone Festival in Qualicum to help send it to the provincial festival in Fort St. John.
The theatre is also, for some members, the place their families started. Ian and Meg Matthews met at a general meeting there in September 1978 and fell in love during a production of Riders to the Sea; one of their daughters later met her husband on the Bailey Studio stage. "We certainly spend more time there than anywhere else," Meg told the Bulletin in 2015.
Among Nanaimo's stages, and how to get a seat
Nanaimo has larger rooms. Tourism Nanaimo describes the Port Theatre as an 800-seat waterfront theatre that hosts local groups and touring attractions, with more than 250 events a year drawing over 100,000 people. At 172 seats, the Bailey Studio is a far smaller house, built for a community company's own season.
The studio is at 2373 Rosstown Road; the group's mailing address is PO Box 796, Nanaimo, V9R 5M2. Tickets are sold through the group's ThunderTix page or by phone at 250-758-7224, and general enquiries go to 250-758-7246. Audition calls and membership details are on the group's website, which also lists the producer and director of each show.
The ticket number has outlasted a change of web address. The 2011 notice for Barefoot in the Park sent readers to nanaimotheatregroup.com and to the same 250-758-7224 that the group's 2026 site gives for the box office. The name over the door has lasted longer still, yet none of the sources consulted here say more about Ivy Bailey than that she was a long-time supporter.
Questions
Where is the Bailey Studio in Nanaimo?
The Bailey Studio is at 2373 Rosstown Road. It is the home of the Nanaimo Theatre Group, which uses it for rehearsals, meetings and its season of plays and musicals.
How many seats does the Bailey Studio have?
It seats 172 people, according to the Nanaimo News Bulletin. That makes it a small house next to the Port Theatre, which Tourism Nanaimo describes as an 800-seat waterfront theatre.
Who runs the Bailey Studio?
The Nanaimo Theatre Group, a community theatre company founded in 1961. The group describes itself as a 100 per cent volunteer organization whose members commit hundreds of hours of their time every season.
Why is it called the Bailey Studio?
The renovated theatre space is named after Ivy Bailey, described by the Nanaimo News Bulletin as a long-time supporter of the theatre group. It opened under that name with A Doll's House in 1980.
When did the Nanaimo Theatre Group stage Barefoot in the Park?
The group's production of Neil Simon's comedy opened at the Bailey Studio on February 2, 2011, and ran to February 19. Sherri McLean directed, with Amber Lochead and Derek Spalding as the newlyweds Corie and Paul Bratter.
How do I buy tickets for a show at the Bailey Studio?
Tickets are sold online through the theatre group's ThunderTix page or by phone at 250-758-7224. For the 2025-26 season the group said ticket prices include all taxes and fees.
What time do shows start at the Bailey Studio?
For its 2025-26 season the Nanaimo Theatre Group announced a new evening curtain time of 7:30 p.m. Check the ticket page for matinee times on the date you want.
Is the Christmas pantomime suitable for small children?
The pantomime is a family tradition at the Bailey Studio, but the group asks that children be at least three years old to attend, out of consideration for the actors and other patrons. The 2026 pantomime, Humpty Dumpty, runs from December 18 to 31.
What is on at the Bailey Studio in the 2026-27 season?
The group lists the pantomime Humpty Dumpty from December 18 to 31, 2026, the musical The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee from February 21 to March 13, 2027, and Christine Quintana's As Above from April 25 to May 15, 2027. Tickets for the season went on sale on August 23, 2026.
Can I audition or volunteer with the Nanaimo Theatre Group?
Yes. The group posts audition calls on its website and offers memberships, and it is run entirely by volunteers. It also rents out costumes and props to individuals and other theatre groups.
Sources
- Newlywed game, Nanaimo News Bulletin, 2011-01-26
- Theatre marks anniversary, Nanaimo News Bulletin, 2011-04-11
- Theatre of dreams, Nanaimo News Bulletin, 2015-08-27
- Roger Leighton Desprez (obituary), Nanaimo News Bulletin, 2021-10-03
- Nanaimo Theatre Group, Bailey Studio, Nanaimo Theatre Group, 2026
- Our Season 2026-2027, Nanaimo Theatre Group, 2026
- Our 2025/2026 Season, Nanaimo Theatre Group, 2025
- NTG in the Community, Nanaimo Theatre Group, 2026
- Theatres and Entertainment, Tourism Nanaimo
- The Port Theatre, Tourism Nanaimo
- Barefoot in the Park, Wikipedia
