Production Manager
- Toronto, ON
- Permanent
- Full-time
Schedule: Variable to meet production needs, including evenings and weekends during production periods
Location: On-site at 12 Alexander Street, Toronto; some remote work possible
Employment Type: Full-time, permanent
Closing date: Open until filled
Approximate start date: As soon as possibleThe physical environment includes working in active technical production spaces, extended periods on your feet, and occasional heavy lifting.ABOUT BUDDIESBuddies in Bad Times, known to friends as Buddies, is a queer organization: for us queerness is a political/aesthetic orientation, more than (just) an identitarian subcategory. Our queerness is oppositional, disobedient, and centres and celebrates otherness and radical outsiders.We operate at 12 Alexander Street in Toronto’s Church-Wellesley Village: two performance spaces, a professional producing theatre, and Tallulah’s Cabaret, our social enterprise nightclub and community hub. We make theatre, we throw parties, and we take both seriously.ROLEThe Production Manager is the operational and administrative backbone of Buddies’ production department. Reporting to the Director of Artistic Planning and working closely with the artistic director, this role leads all production activity across the organization, theatrical seasons in both performance spaces and nightlife programming at Tallulah’s Cabaret, ensuring every production is delivered safely, on schedule, and within budget.This role carries real scope: a budget of approximately $250,000, roughly 30 production personnel, and accountability for the systems, timelines, and people that hold a complex multi-production season together. The Production Manager is as much a human resources and project management role as it is a production role. The planning and the paperwork are as central as the work on the floor.The Production Manager works across departments: with the artistic team, the Producer, the Nightlife and Hosting team, and Marketing and Fundraising, ensuring production information flows clearly and that interdepartmental needs are met. At Buddies, theatrical production and nightlife operate in the same building and often in the same week. This role holds both.WHAT YOU’LL DO
- Lead the production department: hire, onboard, schedule, and manage production personnel including the Technical Director, Head Technicians, and casual crew; lead performance management, set standards, and maintain the HR documentation that keeps a well-run charitable organization defensible.
- Manage the season: build and maintain comprehensive production schedules for all theatre season projects, festivals, nightlife and Buddies-produced events; establish timelines, coordinate across departments, and keep the critical path moving from first meeting to closing night.
- Own the budget: determine financial needs across seasons, provide budget projections, allocate resources, track and reconcile all production-related expenses, and report regularly to the Director of Artistic Planning; identify cost-saving opportunities and flag variances early.
- Lead production on the floor: oversee all technical elements of productions including lighting, sound, and video installations, rehearsals, and previews; support designers within budget constraints; maintain show archives and ensure union and IP compliance.
- Hold safety and compliance: ensure health, safety, and legislative compliance across all production activity; ensure crew are trained and that documentation is current; maintain a supportive, anti-racist, and professionally rigorous production environment.
- Connect the building: coordinate with marketing, fundraising, rentals, and the Nightlife and Hosting team to ensure production information flows where it needs to go and that Tallulah’s and full-facility events are supported efficiently.
- 3+ years of production management experience in professional theatre or a comparable live performance environment
- Demonstrated ability to provide full-cycle people management for production personnel: hiring, onboarding, scheduling, performance management, and offboarding
- Experience managing production budgets of significant scale, including tracking, reconciliation, and financial reporting
- Strong project management skills: you build schedules, maintain critical paths, and keep multiple projects moving simultaneously
- Experience maintaining accurate records and documentation in a regulated or compliance-oriented environment
- Comfort with administrative diligence: contracts, timesheets, HR paperwork, incident reports, show archives
- Strong organizational and communication skills; comfort holding many operational threads simultaneously
- Familiarity with health and safety legislation as it applies to theatrical production environments
- Experience in an organization that operates both theatrical production and live events or nightlife
- Familiarity with union agreements including Equity, ADC and other applicable collective agreements
- Experience with intellectual property rights and contract negotiation for designers and production personnel
- Familiarity with the documentation requirements of a non-profit or charitable organization
- Experience with project management software or scheduling tools
- Experience in a queer, arts, or community-oriented organization
- Standard First Aid certification, Working at Heights
- Experience supporting accessibility in a production or venue context
- Your experience with full-cycle people management: hiring, onboarding, scheduling, performance management, and offboarding production personnel or hourly staff.
- Your approach to project management: how you build and maintain production schedules, manage critical paths, and keep multiple projects on track simultaneously.
- Your experience with financial management: budgeting, expense tracking, reconciliation, and reporting at scale.
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