“DEAR FRIENDS & FELLOW TRAVELLERS: Time has caught up with us at last, but we are not finished yet. There is work still to be done”

~ Jack & Julie Headley

Those who know Jack & Julie Headley will have witnessed the magic within them, and the magic they create. For those who don’t know them, this remarkable couple are the force and founders behind the Tir-na-nOg Theatre School.

For almost 40 years they have enriched the lives of generations of youth through the practice of the Theatre Arts while nurturing creativity, collaboration, and humanity.

They have done this with compassion, integrity, and a lotttt of hard work.

Just recently, however, it has been confirmed that Jack and Julie have simultaneously been diagnosed with serious health challenges: Jack has an aggressive form of prostate cancer and Julie is entering into progressive stages of Alzheimer’s.

In the beginning, Tir-na-nOg was a somewhat of a travelling circus where Julie and Jack would find various places around Bowen Island – barns, community halls, a big top tent, a boxing ring, and even an old brewery – to hold classes and produce plays. But they had a vision of something more for the students: an affordable, purpose-built theatre space that would be available for young people to practice theatre long after they were gone.

That vision took a major step forward in 2004 when the non-profit Charity, the Tir-na-nOg Theatre School Society, collaborated with Wolfgang Duntz at Bowen Island Properties to build the beautiful Tir-na-nOg Theatre building on Rivendell Drive. Wolfgang offered them a unique 99-year lease which stipulated that once the construction mortgage was repaid, the lease payments would drop to just $1/month for the remainder of the term.

Given their current health issues, their vision of enabling Tir-na-nOg to continue without the burden of the construction mortgage is now at risk. So is their capacity to address the medical challenges they will face in the years ahead. 

Over the past 22 years, Julie and Jack have worked tirelessly to pay down the mortgage. By forgoing their salaries ~ and by providing a significant personal loan to the Theatre School Society ~ they managed to take it down from about $600,000 to $112,500.

When the idea was raised of a GoFundMe that might raise money to help with the significant costs associated with their health diagnosis, Julie and Jack immediately requested all funds raised go to the financial obligations of the School. They have always put Tir-na-nOg and the students first.

Few know how much this couple have personally sacrificed to give their students and their community the gift of Tir-na-nOg. They have put aside all luxuries, have given all they have, to keep the Theatre running. They’ve done this wholeheartedly because they care deeply about the growth of young people and know how meaningful theatre can be.

The next generation of the Tir-na-nOg Society is reaching out for help to take care of the future by repaying the building mortgage, and to take care of the founders by repaying as much as possible of their personal loan to help ease the burden of their upcoming medical challenges.

Scarlett Duntz and Daron Jennings at Bowen Island Properties have stepped up in a big way by committing $65,000 toward the repayment of the construction mortgage. They see this as a fitting extension of Wolfgang Duntz’s lifelong practice of quietly helping underwrite cherished community institutions like the Bowen Island Golf Course, Island Pacific School, the Children’s Centre, Cates Hill Chapel, Rivendell Retreat as well as Tir-na-nOg.

With this incredible support in place, we have started this GoFundMe campaign with a goal to raise an additional $150,000 to help Jack and Julie finish what they started, and to enable them to focus on their health and happiness, knowing that Tir-na-nOg is cared for by us all.

Jack and Julie are idealists: they had a vision to create a theatre experience for young people that would introduce them to the craft, but would also cultivate their imagination, their confidence, and ultimately their humanity.

They delivered on this. Whole generations of young students have taken those lessons and experiences into their adult lives.

Our communities – indeed our world – need idealists like Julie and Jack.

And it needs people like the rest of us to support and honour their work, particularly in their time of need.

Thank-you for helping in whatever way you can!

~ The Tir-na-nOg Theatre School Society

*Donations are eligible for tax receipts