The Thompson-Nicola Regional District has doubled its financial support this year for the Western Canada Theatre.

TNRD board members voted unanimously to give $10,000 to the theatre company for 2019, which is double the $5,000 they had had asked for.

We doubled it to $10,000 for this year only because of the fact that they’ve suffered financially as a result of the failure of the roof of the Sagebrush Theatre,” said TNRD Board Chair Ken Gillis.

“I expect that next year, they’ll be back to a $5,000 ask, and I would hope that the board would again approve the $5,000.”

Estimates from the Western Canada Theatre figure they lost up to $45,000 from moving Buddy – The Buddy Holly Story from Sagebrush Theatre to the Coast Hotel last month.

“It was clear that WCT had suffered financially as a result of the fact that they had to move their productions to smaller venues and just the cost of moving is pretty heavy,” added Gillis.

“And so they were hit with unexpected expenses this year.”

Sagebrush Theatre is expected to be offline until at least September.