Claire Vanden Pol
- Producer
- Director
- Writer
Claire started her acting career in high school playing a myriad of well know characters with great finesse until she was forced to graduate. She has been with the Dunnville Community Theatre for more than 30 years. As a young woman she portrayed a wide variety of characters, always to an appreciative audience. She has filled the roles of Director, Producer, Actor, Writer, Publicist and Webmaster. After taking a break to pursue other things such as mechanical and industrial engineering diplomas, she returned to the stage in 2018 as the pompous Reverend Ops in "The Sloth". She performed like a well aged Ham in a Murder Mystery called "Murder at STD High" as Goldie Showers and returned to the DCT stage in 2019 to play Henry Mitchell, the besotted chemist in "Sex Please We're Sixty" as well as Lillian Lamour, a man pretending to be a woman who pretends to be a man in "Confessions of a Dirty Blonde".
Claire wrote 10 episodes of "Close to the Curtain" as well as several promotional videos. Her commitment to the benefits of the performing arts in theatre, dance and music as well as her ambition to improve life in her community are combined in an ambition to see a Performing Arts Centre built in her home town of Dunnville, Ontario.
Her belief in the power of theatre: a proper performance space can shift a mindset of recreation which is stuck on sports and produce a rethinking of culture which is stuck in museums. It will prove it's many benefits to children, youth and adults of every age and every physical acuity by teaching them real-life skills, by including them in a team effort, by introducing them to empathy exercises, by instilling confidence, pride and ownership and finally by making them committed community members who will make remarkable contributions.