Halifax: This year marks the 15th anniversary of Halifax-based prodco Creative Atlantic Communications, and, although the company shifted its focus from corporate and commercial to television production only five years ago, it has already produced an impressive slate of original programming, including the satirical comedy series Liocracy, starring Leslie Nielsen, and the upcoming dramatic comedy series Robson Arms, coproduced with Vancouver-based Omni Film Productions.

Now Creative Atlantic is producing The Singular Series, an innovative performing arts project for Bravo!, and is looking to develop international coproduction relationships on Seadogs, a children’s dramatic series in development for YTV with Double V of France.

Executive producer Janice Evans and president Greg Jones started Creative Atlantic in 1989. After 10 years of focusing on commercial and corporate projects, the pair began producing Atlantic segments for lifestyle series such as The Creators, a W Network series about female artists. The company was nominated for a Gemini on one of its first productions, Eb & Flo, a dramatic half-hour for CBC, but Evans says Liocracy was their big break.

Evans and Jones are in the process of posting the final episodes of The Singular Series, 13 one-hours for Bravo! Each ep features a solo show by a different performing artist, taped live at Halifax’s Neptune Studio Theatre to capture the essence of stage performance.

After viewing the first six episodes, completed last fall, Bravo! ordered seven more one-hours and will air all 13 in its upcoming season. The second instalment of performances was taped live in Halifax Aug. 5-8, with post being done in-house by Carrie MacKenzie, formerly of Halifax’s Power Post. Creative Atlantic will deliver the completed series in October. The first six episodes were financed through Bravo!, the Nova Scotia Film Development Corporation and CBC Atlantic, with the final seven funded through Bravo! and the NSFDC.

Like Robson Arms, The Singular Series features some of Canada’s top emerging talents, such as Amy House, Alex Dallas, James O’Riley, Mary Ellen MacLean and Denise Clarke.

‘We really think this is an unprecedented opportunity for theater performers across Canada,’ says Evans. ‘For a lot of the [performers] this is their first break to be on television.’

Creative Atlantic is currently in development on its first international coproduction, Seadogs, a France/ Canada live-action youth drama series, which Evans says should go to camera next summer and has recently been picked up by French broadcaster France 2. The series, from writer/director Sheri Elwood (Deeply), is about a group of young people who work as junior coast guards for the summer.

‘It would be a huge internationally coproduced television production coming out of Halifax,’ says Evans.

Although the company is looking to expand by pursuing more international coproductions, Evans says that running a successful small business for 15 years has taught her the importance of not trying to take on too much at once.

‘We want to stay fairly mean and lean and versatile, because as small business owners, we have found that the Canadian television production industry can change so quickly that you can be blindsided by it if you have all your eggs in one basket,’ she says.

Also in development at Creative Atlantic are a documentary about Halifax’s Buddhist community for CBC, with local director Donna Davies, and Miles from Home: The Story of Johnny Miles, a CBC MOW about the Nova Scotia marathon runner from director Michael Melski.