Perth Festival Executive Producer to move to Fremantle Arts Centre

Perth Festival today announced that Executive Producer Anna Reece will be leaving the organisation to take on the role of Director at Fremantle Arts Centre.

Anna Reece joined Perth Festival in 2014 to produce Perth’s most successful and memorable event The Giants in 2015.

Upon her departure as Executive Producer after the delivery of the 2021 Perth Festival in March, she will have overseen the artistic and operational delivery of seven festivals. This includes managing the producing of the Festival’s unique events of scale Home, Boorna Waanginy: The Trees Speak and Highway to Hell as well as the commissioning of many new Western Australian works.

One of her most significant achievements has been implementing the Festival’s unrivalled Connect program which works with communities, artists, teachers and organisations to contribute to a flourishing cultural sector in Perth for which she is a passionate advocate.

Perth Festival Executive Director Nathan Bennett said: ‘Anna has been a driving force behind the success of Perth Festival for almost seven years. She is a hugely respected leader, not just in our organisation but in the wider arts sector in Australia and beyond. She will be a huge loss to our organisation, but we are so proud to see her take up such an important leadership role in the WA arts sector. Fremantle Arts Centre is one of Perth Festival’s closest partners and we can’t imagine what brilliance Anna will bring in her new role there.’

Perth Festival Artistic Director Iain Grandage said: ‘Anna has been a deeply trusted collaborator and creative colleague during my time at the Festival. I so look forward to continuing that relationship as she embarks on the next stage of her brilliant career.’ 

Anna Reece said: ‘Perth Festival has given me the most extraordinary opportunities and such cherished relationships for which I will be forever grateful. I’m so deeply proud to have played a role in the journey this festival has taken over the last six years to embed itself in its place and in its community. Delivering a final festival in 2021, celebrating the artists and stories of Western Australia feels like a natural way to close this chapter and begin the next chapter leading Fremantle Arts Centre.’

Perth Festival will undertake an extensive search with the view that a successful candidate would work in a transitional capacity with Anna during the delivery of the 2021 Festival before she takes up her new role at Fremantle Arts Centre in March.