Plank Threw Another Dinner Party!

We sat around a long table inside a wine cellar filled with bottles and warm wood. Many of our 11 guests knew each other from the Toronto theatre scene, but sitting down to dinner like this was a first.

The reaction to a Plank dinner invite is usually uncertainty. Are you selling something? No, no we’re not. Plank has a passion for arts and culture, of which theatre is a huge part. We enjoy gathering people from industries that are meaningful to us and sharing an evening of food and drink. Our goal is always to bring people together, exchange ideas, learn something new and walk away feeling inspired. And of course, to have fun.

Thank you for hosting the Plank dinner party! It was a rare delight to sit down to a nice dinner with fellow theatre makers and marketers. Can we please do this every month?

– Tanya Doroslovac, Director Marketing and Communications, Crow’s Theatre

Our keynote speaker was a cherished friend and collaborator. Michael Wheeler is the Artistic Director of SpiderWebShow which puts on foldA, a festival of live digital art. Plank has been the festival’s digital partner for the last two years.

I was excited to attend the Plank dinner in Toronto after attending one in Montreal two years earlier. This year was rewarding in new ways, the conversation had shifted from what digital COULD offer to live performance to what is happening NOW.

– Michael Wheeler, Co-Artistic Director, SpiderWebShow

Plank has several theatres as clients, two in Montreal and one in Cincinnati. The abundance of powerful visuals and videos always make designing and building these websites exciting and stimulating. Each theatre is unique, with its own challenges and vision, and each has a wonderful story to tell. We help tell that story online. Plank clients also include multiple festivals as well as heritage and cultural organizations – we designed and built the website for The Canadian Encyclopedia. Plank also spent 10 years working with Culture Days, a national celebration of the arts. When we say we love arts and culture, we mean it.

It was a pleasure to attend the dinner party hosted by Plank. I very much enjoyed the food, the conversation with my friends and colleagues and above all Micheal Wheeler’s remarks on the power of digital.

– Soheil Parsa, Artistic Director, Modern Times Stage Company

Ultimately these dinner parties allow us to to get to know people who share our passions. Our hope is to form friendships, build bridges and expand our networks. And to encourage each other, in whatever ways we can. We strive to make the internet a beautiful place – working with inspiring people who do inspiring work pushes us to be our best. We thrive designing and building sites that are meaningful to us.

It was truly an eye opening experience being exposed to the vast theatre culture and community that exists in Toronto. The conversation flowed easily between the concerns the digital era poses, and how that impacts the theatre to family and community.

– Kayla Keizer, Project Manager (The Children’s Theatre of Cincinnati), Plank

To everyone who attended our evening, thank you. We hope to meet again. And if you’d like Plank to host a dinner party in your city, reach out, we’ll make it happen.