After more than 35 years in professional theatre that has taken him across Canada, Robert More is coming home to Owen Sound.

The veteran actor, director, artistic director, general manager and playwright began his new role as executive director of the Roxy and Owen Sound Little Theatre on Feb. 10 and is looking forward to the experience it brings.

“I am very excited here to be working in tandem with all the OSLT producers for the shows, and on all the Roxy series and rentals that come in,” said More. “It is very much a producers’ job and that for me is one of my favourite things in the world to do.”

While More has been away from Owen Sound for many years, he has deep family roots in the city and the local theatre scene.

His parents, Art and Eileen More, were heavily involved with OSLT and the Roxy in the 1980s and 90s.

More grew up in Owen Sound, where he attended OSCVI, before pursuing an acting career that took him across the country. But he would occasionally bump into “this raucous, loud, interesting, full-of-life gang” from OSLT at events such as the Western Ontario Drama League Festival. Three of his plays were also produced by OSLT over the years, including Steel Hearts and Rocky Shores in 1995, Dads! The Musical in 2002 and Dads II: The Toddlers’ Revenge in 2007.

“I go way back with the Roxy,” More said. “After all these years in theatre, mostly in Ontario, but going across the country, I was about to spend six or seven months writing a new play when I saw the advertisement and decided I had to apply.”

More had most recently spent three years in Parrsboro, Nova Scotia, as director of Parrsboro Creative Visual Arts Organization. While he loved the East Coast, he said it was time to get back to Ontario. A big part of it was for family reasons, as he is the father of four grown daughters and a grandfather of a seven-year-old boy and five-year-old girl.

He said he is also an Ontario guy at heart.

“One of my favourite places to be is walking the Bruce Trail, going up to the Tub or being in Georgian Bay,” More said. “For me, Owen Sound is the essence of what Ontario life is.”

More said he also wanted to get back to Ontario theatre, which he said offers the most “richness and variety” in all of Canada.

And he said OSLT is quintessential Ontario theatre in that it is a small, community theatre company, but it does big things.

“They are incredible people here. They are very well organized, very collaborative in spirit, very supportive and it is a wonderful working atmosphere,” he said.

“One of the reasons I came to the Roxy is because I don’t know of another theatre story in Ontario, if not in Canada, that matches this. Where is there another community theatre that owns its own building, that is financially extremely successful and has a vision of contributing to the community?”

He is also in awe of the mix of productions OSLT has tackled and used the currently running 59th annual playbill as an example. It includes Sister Act, West Moon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night, and Born Yesterday.

He said OSLT’s 60th annual playbill will again show that range, with productions of Beauty and the Beast, Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, The Red Plaid Shirt by Michael Wilmott, and Gorgeous Gallivanting Ladies by Sheila Spur.

“You have got broadway, you have locally written and you have Shakespeare coming up in the 60th,” he said. “Who else is doing that? That is a professional playbill and they are doing it here.”

More said he is remaining tight-lipped about what the Roxy’s 2020-21 season will bring, but he said he has some plans that are “world class.” He said the public can once again expect a lineup that features a wide variety of acts.

“You get the highest quality going and it goes on and on and on,” More said. “It is just a tremendous mix of entertainment and interests.”

More is also a big fan of the venue.

“I am theatre guy and I love this place,” he said. “You walk in and it says theatre. It says exciting.”

More said that while OSLT already has a good standing in the community and across the province, his vision for the Roxy is to make it well-known throughout an even wider swath of southern Ontario.

“Because I have worked with enough people, I would like to start connecting the Roxy and OSLT to a wider circle in Ontario,” More said.

He would also like to work co-operatively with other theatres to market the Roxy.

“The Roxy is already getting well-known, but by the time we get to the next two or three years there won’t be an agent in Ontario that won’t know us and there will be many agents across Canada that will know it is one of the premiere places in this country for musicians and actors to go to,” said More. “We are looking for a real change in profile so it will become kind of a leading theatre arts organization in Ontario over the next few years and it is on its way now.”