Playwrights

Kamee Abrahamian

Fringe New Play Prize

Kamee was born in an immigrant suburb to an Armenian family by way of the SWANA region; and currently lives on settler land, uninvited. She arrives in the world today as a queer woman, a mother, and a multidisciplinary producer, performer, artist, facilitator, and storyteller. She has a BFA/BA in film and political science, an MA in expressive art therapy, and is currently pursuing an MA/PhD in Depth Psychology with a specialization in community, liberation, and eco psychologies. The bedrock of Kamee’s arts background is in classical ballet, theatre, and visual art. In collaboration with fellow artists and allies (Kalik Arts, Saboteur Productions, Lovelinest), she continues to develop and build on a body of work that spirals in-to and out-of fragmented time/place through ancestral healing, diasporic futurism and decolonial imagination — inclusive of film, performance, writing, transmedia, digital art and design.

Barbara Adler

WrightSpace (Colony)

Barbara Adler is an interdisciplinary artist whose work brings together literary performance, composition, event making and design. Her work has been presented through multiple solo and band albums, publication in spoken word anthologies and performances at major music and literary festivals. Recent collaborators include choreographer Lesley Telford (Ballet BC/Inverso), composer Leah Abramson, documentary filmmaker Jan Foukal and theatre artist Kyla Gardiner. In 2016, she joined Cole Schmidt and James Meger to launch Sawdust Collector, a weekly performance series presenting new, experimental and improvised works by established and emerging artists in an interdisciplinary context.

Barbara’s work frequently addresses artifice within the natural world, nostalgia, and commodity culture, with a particular focus on the intersections between outdoor recreation, fashion and marketing. Current research interests include North American duck decoys and Dutch eendenkooi, Floridian mermaids and orchid smuggling, feminist taxidermy and the colour, Millennial Pink. Though her heroes tend to be marginally successful side-hustlers with excellent fake eyelashes, Barbara is empathically anti-whimsy. She holds an MFA in Interdisciplinary Studies and a BA in Art and Cultural Studies, both from Simon Fraser University.

Website: tenthousandwolves.com
FB: facebook.com/tenthousandwolves
Instagram: @tenthousandwolves
Pinterest: 10000wolves
Sawdust Collector: sawdustcollector.com

Carmen Aguirre

PTC Associates

Carmen Aguirre is a theatre artist who has written and co-written over twenty plays, including Chile Con Carne, The Trigger, Blue Box and The Refugee Hotel. She is currently working on three new plays: Anywhere But Here, The Tina Modotti Project, and Broken Tailbone.

Her first book, Something Fierce: Memoirs of a Revolutionary Daughter, won CBC Canada Reads 2012 and is a #1 national bestseller. Her second memoir Mexican Hooker #1 was launched in April 2016 by Random House Canada. She has been playwright-in-residence at The Vancouver Playhouse, Touchstone Theatre, and The Belfry Theatre. As an actor, she has over sixty film, TV, and stage acting credits, including lead roles in the indie favourite Quinceanera, and the showcase series Endgame. Carmen is the recipient of the 2014 Ten Most Influential Hispanics in Canada Award, the 2014 Latincouver Inspirational Latin Award, the 2014 Betty Mitchell Award for her performance in The Motherfucker With The Hat, the 2012 Langara College Outstanding Alumna Award, the 2011 Union of B.C. Performers’ Lorena Gale Woman of Distinction Award, and the 2002 New Play Centre’s Best New Play Award for The Refugee Hotel. She is a graduate of Studio 58.

Peter Anderson

WrightSpace (Colony)

Playwright, poet and actor Peter Anderson has authored over twenty plays, including a re-imagined version of Twelfth Night – Head Over Heels, Flee (with David Hudgins and Jonathon Young), Don Quixote (with Colin Heath), The Blue Horse, The Ballad of Weedy Peetstraw, Horseplay (published in “Playing the Pacific Province”), Rattle in the Dash, an adaptation of Lysistrata and the mystery cycle trilogy Creation, Nativity & Passion (most recently produced at the National Arts Centre).

Other credits include the libretto for a “micro-opera” Aftermath and a song cycle Four Horses (both with composer Jennifer Butler), and excerpted monologues published in Refractions: Solo, The Perfect Piece, and Another Perfect Piece. He’s the recipient of three Hopwood Awards for fiction and poetry at the University of Michigan, as well as numerous Jessie Richardson Awards for playwriting and acting. His plays are available at playwrightsguild.ca/playwright/peter-anderson

Megan Andres

Block A

Megan is a Vancouver- and Winnipeg-based theatre performer, director, dramaturg, and most recently playwright. Megan has a BA in Theatre from the University of Manitoba and has trained and worked with various theatre companies including Theatre By the River, Sarasvàti Productions, Prairie Theatre Exchange, Theatre Projects Manitoba, Theatre Incarnate, Manitoba Association of Playwrights, Tara Players, Black Hole Theatre Company and others.

In Winnipeg, Megan also worked as a support worker at an assisted independent living program for people living with mental illness; a drama instructor, developing workshops for ages 5 to 14, and as a storyteller at the Manitoba Museum. Megan’s plays include Fracture (produced in the 2016 Brave New Play Rites Festival), only (just)… which was nominated for the Harry Rintoule Award for Best New Manitoban Play in 2014, her one-woman show Catching Shadows and Antipode which was a winner of the University of Manitoba’s M. Charles Cohen Prize for most outstanding stage play of the year in 2009. Megan is one of the producers of the Brave New Play Rites Festival and in 2016 served as director and dramaturg for its Staged Reading Series. Megan is currently pursuing a Joint Creative Writing and Theatre MFA at the University of British Columbia.

Elaine Avila

PTC Associates

Elaine Avila, a Canadian playwright of Azorean/Portuguese descent, has a passion for exploring untold stories. Frequently incorporating music, politics and humor, her work is described as “bold, intelligent, forthright, spirited, compassionate… inviting, wide-ranging” (Caridad Svich), “open, generous” (Erik Ehn) and “a wonderful writer, tremendously gifted, reliable, and innovative.” (Suzan-Lori Parks).

Her plays have premiered in Edmonton, Vancouver, Victoria, Toronto, New York City, Seattle, New Mexico, Lisbon, Portugal and London, England. Recent/upcoming work: Jane Austen, Action Figure; Kitimat; Quality: the Shoe Play, Lieutenant Nun, Burn Gloom, La Frontera/The Border, Lost and Found in Fado. Awards: Victoria Critic’s Circle for Best New Play, Audience Favorite Festival de Cocos, Panama City; Winner, Disquiet International Short Play Competition, Lisbon; Canada Council (numerous). She has taught in universities from British Columbia to Tasmania, China to Panama. Publications include: NoPassport Press (Jane Austen, Action Figure and other Plays, in 24 Gun Control Plays), Howlround, Canadian Theatre Review, American Theater, Café Onda, TCG Circles (Artistry and Innovation, Crossing Borders) Contemporary Theatre Review, Lusitania. She is the Playwright in Residence at Pomona College in Los Angeles and was recently distinguished as a descendentes notáveis (Notable Descendant) for her theatre work by the Government of the Azores, Portugal.”

Diana Bang

Diana Bang was born and raised in Vancouver, B.C. She is an actor and sketch comedian. Film credits include The Interview, Entanglement and The Master Cleanse. She is a founding member of Asian-Canadian sketch comedy group, Assaulted Fish. Currently, she performs with The Lady Show, a comedy show where they put the “joy” in “feminist killjoy”. She is also a member of Wet Ink Collective. Diana recently performed in the solo show, SELF-ish, written by Kuan Foo and directed and dramaturged by Dawn Milman, at the Vancouver Fringe Festival. She is also writing and developing a solo show with the working title, Self-Possessed.

Brandon Barrett

Block A

Brandon Barrett is an actor, theatre producer and journalist based in Whistler, B.C. He has been involved with the resort community’s small-but-mighty grassroots theatre scene since 2014, performing and writing for Whistler’s longest-running annual production, The Chairlift Revue, as well as co-producing and directing the irreverent sketch show, Comedy Quickies, for the past three years. A graduate of Carleton University, Brandon’s first play, Between Two Tall Mountains, premiered at the 2016 Flag Stop Theatre & Arts Festival.

Mariam Barry

Block A

Mariam Barry is an actor and theatre artist from Norway and The Gambia. She immigrated to Canada five years ago and holds a BFA in Acting from the University of British Columbia. As a theatre artist, Mariam has worked with Rumble Theatre, Ensemble Theatre Company, Bard on the Beach, Urban Ink, Zee Zee Theatre, Peninsula Productions, Belfry Theatre, Passion in Practice, and LAMDA in various artistic roles. Her recent credits include: Theory (Rumble Theatre), Ruined (Dark Glass Theatre), The Christians (Pacific Theatre), UnSettled: A Journey of Our Homes on Native Land (The Cultch: Indigenous Youth Initiative), and In The Next Room or The Vibrator Play (Ensemble Theatre Company). Mariam has produced a sold-out staged reading series of ‘da Kink in My Hair by Trey Anthony and a three time remounted production of Love, Lust & Lace in collaboration with Axis Theatre. She was a company apprentice at Pacific Theatre during their 2017-2018 season, and is currently a co-producer of The Virago Play Series. Her passion for theatre is rooted in African storytelling.

Henry Beasley

Block A

Henry is an award-winning interdisciplinary theatre artist born and raised in New Westminster, British Columbia. He has worked across Canada primarily as a musical theatre performer and musician; Henry has recently turned his attention to writing and fight choreography. Select credits: The [Organization] (Unladylike Co.), Grease, and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (Chemainus), Crazy For You (Gateway Theatre), Otello (Vancouver Opera) Henry has a passion for education and, funds permitting, will spend his entire life training. Henry is a graduate of Capilano University and a member of Fight Directors Canada. Instagram – henrybeasley316

Roger Blenman

Block P

Roger R. Blenman is a Barbarian-born Canadian author, playwright, spoken work artist, poet, theatre director and secondary school teacher. Has degrees in Science and in Education from the University of Toronto.

Most recent novel, Dead’er, published 2015 by Hamilton Books. Other work has been published/broadcast/performed: CBC-North by Northwest, Scarborough Fair/University of Toronto Press, Antigonish Review, Bluesprint/Arsenal Pulp Press and others.

lee williams boudakian

lee williams boudakian (uses they, them, theirs pronouns) is a queer, trans, Armenian-Liverpudlian mixie with familial & ancestral ties to Lebanon, Syria, what is current-day Turkey, and Liverpool, England. Born in Scarborough, Ontario, and having moved many times, lee currently works as an interdisciplinary artist, writer, producer and facilitator based in Vancouver, unceded Coast Salish lands. lee has trained across artistic disciplines in both institutional and non-institutional settings, and arrives at artmaking as acts of resistance, world&future visioning, and celebration towards liberation and healing. Current love projects include Kalik, ShapeShift Arts, and The HyePhen Mag.

Leanna Brodie

PTC Associates

Leanna Brodie is a playwright, actor, and translator. The Vic, For Home and Country, The Book of Esther, and Schoolhouse, published by Talon Books, are regularly performed across Canada. Ulla’s Odyssey, her award-winning opera with Anthony Young, has toured the UK. She has translated numerous Québec playwrights, including Hélène Ducharme of Théâtre Motus and Christian Bégin. She has been playwright-in-residence at the Blyth Festival, 4^th Line Theatre, Lighthouse Festival Theatre, and currently, the Gateway Theatre. Other residencies have included PTC’s Colony, Banff Playwrights Colony, Hedgebrook Women Playwrights Festival, and Glassco Translation Residency. Ruby Slippers premiered her translation of Catherine Léger’s I Lost My Husband! at the Gateway in March 2018. leannabrodie.com

Lesli Brownlee

Block A

Lesli Brownlee is a Vancouver based actor and writer. Performance credits include Aphrodite and Psyche in Mary Zimmerman’s Metamorphoses and Reggie in Neil LaBute’s Some Girl’s. Film and TV credits include Smallville and Blood riders: The Devil Rides with Us. Writing credits include It Was Like… and Grimaldi’s Asylum (Sketch Comedy Troupe). She also writes poetry and fiction.

Belinda Bruce

Block A

Belinda Bruce is a writer, editor, graphic designer, communications consultant and musician. She has employed her editorial, graphic, PR and storytelling skills across an array of media and diverse industries including publishing, advertising, international development and the arts. Belinda is also the communications manager for PTC and Theatre Conspiracy. Her writing has appeared in various publications including Descant, Event, Vancouver Review, Arts Alive, Coastlines, Toronto Life, Post City Magazines and frugalbits.com. Belinda’s theatre performance experience includes choir member in The Events (Pi Theatre, Push Festival 2018); musical director/band member in Save More (Theatre Conspiracy/Obstructions Series, 2012); choir member in the Lost Gospel Ensemble in The Meal (PuSh Festival 2011/Pacific Theatre, 2012) and musical theatre as a child. She has released two critically acclaimed albums and performed in several venues, tours and festivals in Canada and the U.S. Her album Dream Yourself Awake was nominated for 3 Canadian Music Awards: Best New/ Emerging Artist, Favorite Folk Artist, and Best New Solo Artist. Her song “Rust”, from her album The Good Life, was a semi-finalist in the 2005 International Songwriting Competition. Belinda holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia and a BA in English from York University. She lives in East Vancouver with her musician partner and seven-toed cat.

Moses Clyde Caliboso

Block P

Moses Clyde Caliboso is a poet, playwright, rapper, writer, performer, and barista.

His work has been on display with W49, Urban Ink Productions, and the Arts Club Theatre Company’s LEAP program. He considers some of his influences and inspirations to be Frank Ocean, Pablo Neruda, Junot Diaz, Lydia Davis and Carlos Bulosan. His favourite cafe in Vancouver is Kafka’s.

Tim Carlson

Tim Carlson is a playwright, dramaturg, curator and the artistic producer of Theatre Conspiracy. He led the creation of Foreign Radical which won the 2015 Jessie Award Critics Choice Innovation prize and a 2017 Edinburgh Fringe First Award. He was researcher/ interviewer for Berlin-based Rimini Protokoll’s latest show, Top Secret International, seen at the 2017 Under the Radar Festival in New York. His new documentary play, Victim Impact, premieres at The Cultch in Vancouver in June 2018. The show Extraction, won the 2013 Rio Tinto Alcan Award, Canada’s largest prize for new play development.

Other credits include: co-creator/performer in Stray with Tanya Marquardt and Mallory Catlett (Club PuSh Vancouver and Brooklyn Arts Exchange, 2014), and dramaturgy for Best Before (Rimini Protokoll, @ PuSh Festival 2010) and 100% Vancouver (Rimini Protokoll / Theatre Replacement, @ PuSh 2011). His play Omniscience (Talonbooks, 2007) was produced in Vancouver, Berlin, Lisbon and Chicago. He founded Club PuSh with the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival in Vancouver and served as co-curator along with Veda Hille and Norman Armour from 2009 to 2016. As a journalist, he worked on staff at the Halifax Daily News, Vancouver Sun and Georgia Straight. He holds an English degree from University of Regina, a journalism degree from University of King’s College, Halifax, and a MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia.

Bronwyn Carradine

Block A

Bronwyn is a multi-disciplinary theatre artist based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Bronwyn directed her first play, Train Tracks, a show based on 14-year-old Prince Tyre’s death, when she was 17. Since then she has been travelling across the country both in productions and continuing her training. After a summer at the Stratford Festival, she attended Bishop’s University, and later Studio 58 where she was able to continue her passion for acting, as well as writing and directing. Assistant directing credits include: Elbow Room Cafe, the Musical phase 1 & 2 (Zee Zee Theatre), Romeo & Juliet (The Chop), and Dressing for a Wedding (Solo Collective). Most recent writing credits include: Honour (Zee Zee Theatre), Polished (Intrepid Theatre), Numbers (Studio 58), No Strings Attached (Risky Nights). Bronwyn is a graduate of Studio 58.

Tania Carter

WrightSpace (Colony)

WrightSpace is one more step towards the goal of producing my own plays that inscribe a way of being that I have always felt, but not always lived. I am a Master of Arts graduate. It was a lot of hard work. Yet the most significant influences on my work are childhood memories of the longhouse that my mother brought me to, and of my grandmother and the times at her house. The dancers, the speakers, the proximity of people, the lush landscape, the close mountains, the thought of bears around and don’t forget the blackberries. I am Coast Salish and many other cultures and I cherish them all. It has taken many years to see the value in all of nature. The respect that arrives once one cherishes oneself and others is fascinating. Tradition and many people and ways of teaching have changed my life. I have learned to listen and open my eyes to new ways of seeing. I thank my teachers, Lee Maracle, Leonard George, my grandma, my sister and my child, Kwanita Cohen and theatre teacher David Secunda; without them I would not be who I am today.

Pedro Chamale

Collaborations

Pedro Chamale is a first-generation Latinx-Canadian theatre artist who was born and raised in northern British Columbia. He received his BFA in Theatre Performance from SFU’s School for the Contemporary Arts. He then went on to form rice & beans theatre with Derek Chan. Pedro is a performer, director, playwright and theatre jack-of-all-trades. Selected Credits: Selfie, Bull (Rumble Theatre), Broken Tailbone (Nightswimming), Mis Papás (rice & beans), Are We There Yet? (Neworld Theatre), and The Show Must Go On (Push Festival).

Pedro was the artist-in-residence at Neworld Theatre in 2014, the guest curator of the 2018 rEvolver Festival, and is one of the founding members of the Canadian Latinx Theatre Artist Coalition (CALTAC).Currently, through a company collaboration with rice & beans theatre and PTC, Pedro is working on his new play Made In Canada, an excerpt of which is featured at the Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival (see below) on November 3, 2018 and will premiere in July 2020 at the Annex Theatre.

Pedro has also worked behind the scenes with local Vancouver theatre companies including: Full Circle First Nations Performance, Leaky Heaven, Boca del Lupo, Neworld Theatre and The Only Animal.

Wendy Chan

Block A

Wendy Chan is a Vancouver-based writer and editor. Originally from Mississauga, Ontario, Wendy has written for print, digital, and stage. Her short stories have appeared in Shoreline and Discorder Magazine. Her one-act play, “As Thick as Thieves”, was performed at the Brave New Play Rites Festival. Wendy holds a BFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia. Her writing focuses on the destructive, beautiful, and complex ways in which people learn to endure their reality.

Gavan Cheema

Block SAT

Gavan is a multidisciplinary theatre artist who has a passion for using theatre as a means to build community, celebrate diversity and spark positive change. She holds a double major from UBC in Theatre Studies and History. Her past directing credits include a staged read of da Kink in my Hair by Trey Anthony for Stone throw productions, Victim Impact by Tim Carlson for Theatre Conspiracy (assistant), a staged reading of Mrs. Singh and Me by Munish Sharma for the Arts Club, Bombay Black by Anosh Irani for the Vancouver Fringe Festival (assistant), Stuck in Transit by Hallie Ann Jacobson for the Brave New Play Rites Festival, Men in White by Anosh Irani for the Arts Club (assistant), and Disgraced by Ayad Akhtar for the UBC Players Club.

Jasmine Chehil

Block SAT

Jasmine writes from a first generation Canadian/ancient Punjabi/contemporary Sikh/ female perspective in her hometown of Vancouver. Her work seeks to explore the construction of identities as praxis and how these may be influenced by cross-cultural, cross-spiritual theatre production from lenses of indigeneity.

Rohit Chokhani

Block SAT

Rohit is an award winning mid career arts producer and cultural leader. Currently, he is the 2015 Producer in Residence at the National Arts Centre – English Theatre and an Artistic Producer for South Asian Arts and Diwali Fest based out of Vancouver/Surrey, BC.

He recently launched a sector development initiative called Project SAT (South Asian Theatre project) to create a network for developing, touring, producing and presenting national and international South Asian themed theatre projects in Canada. Prior, he worked as a General Manager for Vancouver’s Touchstone Theatre and urban ink productions. His Credits include: Nirbhaya (Amnesty International Freedom of Expression Award), The Romeo Initiative (4 Jessie nominations), Night, The Concessions (3 Jessie nominations), 2014 Lawyer show – Legally Blonde: The Musical, Hirsch and Late Company (4 Jessie nominations), Mrs. Singh & Me (2015 Pick of the Fringe Award winner), Sal Capone (5 Meta Award nominations), Siddhartha: the Journey Home (2011 Talk of the Fringe Award) and Women In Fish at Katzie Nation. He was also involved in partnerships with PuSh International Performing Arts Festival, Chutzpah! Festival, DOXA Festival and Music on Main and helped deliver an award winning season at Touchstone Theatre that featured more than 50% of its programming through women playwrights. His management career of over seven years started with some well known clients such as FOX, Pixar, Disney, Nickelodeon and Majesco and entertainment titles included Dora the Explorer, SpongeBob Square Pants and Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel. Rohit grew up in Bombay (Mumbai), home to Bollywood, the centre of the Indian subcontinent’s vibrant performing arts industry. He is highly passionate about making performing arts equitable and sustainable.

Joseph A. Dandurand

WrightSpace (Colony)

Joseph is a member of Kwantlen First Nation located on the Fraser River about 20 minutes east of Vancouver. He resides there with his 3 children: Danessa, Marlysse and Jace. Joseph is the Director of the Kwantlen Cultural Centre. He received a Diploma in Performing Arts from Algonquin College and studied Theatre and Direction at the University of Ottawa. He recently published 2 books of poetry: I Want by Leaf Press (2015) and Hear and Foretell by BookLand Press (2015). His newest book of poems, The Rumour, will be published by BookLand Press in October 2017.

Jan Derbyshire

ACK Lab

Jan Derbyshire is an established multi-disciplinary artist, producer, inclusive designer and educator. She specializes in the design a facilitation and delivery of playful, inclusive, interactive, and participatory experiences that push forward ideas of diversity, belonging and interdependent communities.

A self-motivated, enthusiastic communicator she is able to express ideas both in public presentations and writing with over 20 years experience working in professional and community arts and in issue based collaborations with non-profits, educational institutes and corporations. She draws from a background of stand-up comedy, playwriting, devised theatre, storytelling, interactive installation, game design, essay writing, and stage directing. She has produced projects locally, nationally and internationally. Jan Holds a Masters in Inclusive Design form OCAD University in Toronto.

Dave Deveau

PTC Associates

Dave Deveau is an award-winning writer and performer whose plays and operas have been produced across Canada and in Europe. He is the Playwright in Residence for Zee Zee Theatre who produced his plays Nelly Boy, Tiny Replicas (GayVancouver’s Top 10 Productions of 2011), the critically-acclaimed My Funny Valentine (Sydney Risk Prize, Jessie Nomination, Oscar Wilde Nomination – Dublin), Lowest Common Denominator and Elbow Room Café: The Musical (with Anton Lipovetsky).

His theatre for young audiences plays were all commissioned and premiered with Green Thumb Theatre, and have subsequently continued into other productions: Out in the Open is currently on tour with Ontario’s To Be Determined Theatre, tagged, which was recently nominated for a Dora award has just opened in Israel in a Hebrew translation and Celestial Being which has been touring for the past three seasons. He is one of the Associates at Playwrights Theatre Centre where he is developing a number of projects including new commissions for Zee Zee Theatre: Dead People’s Things, and (H)OUR. His first screenplay Us in Nine Months, based on his play Tiny Replicas just won the Harold Greenberg Award at the Canadian Film Festival and starts shooting later this year with Sociable Films. He is currently working one new commissions for Green Thumb Theatre, Roseneath Theatre and The Belfry. For the past four years he has been honoured to curate Human Library, a community-engaged theatrical hybrid project for Zee Zee Theatre as part of the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival. Dave was recently included in Xtra’s Top 30 Under 30 and OUTtv’s Queers of the Year and is the 2014 recipient of the Pride Legacy Award for Art. In total, his plays have been nominated for 20 Jessies, including 2 nominations for his scripts.

Sunny Drake

WrightSpace (Colony)

Sunny Drake is a playwright, theatre creator, performer and independent theatre producer. He has toured his works to a wide range of audiences in 80 venues in 55 cities across Australia, the US, Canada and Europe. His play, No Strings (Attached) has been translated into four languages. X won the 2013 SummerWorks RBC Arts Professional Award, as well as being named by NOW Magazine for “Outstanding Performance” and “Outstanding Design”.

Sunny is also the Director of Emerging Creators Unit at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre. He was born and grown in Australia and has been a permanent resident of Canada for over five years, based in Toronto. Sunny is currently working on two new plays, a collective creation piece and a feature length screenplay. sunnydrake.com

Andrew Duffy

Block A

Andrew is a recent graduate of the Phoenix Theatre Program at the University of Victoria. He is a Vancouver based set designer, scenic carpenter, scenic painter, and now, writer. He is currently working as a painter for the Vancouver film industry; his credits include Zoo Season Three, and No Tomorrow Season One. His recent theatre credits include Antagonist (Little Mountain Lion Productions) and Prof. (Metro Theatre Victoria).

Kendra Fanconi

Kendra Fanconi has worked since 1994 as an actor, writer, director, theatre creator and producer of original, often site-specific work. She has created plays in swimming pools, treetops, elevators, on False Creek, and in a theatre built of snow and ice. Kendra is the Artistic Director of The Only Animal. Kendra’s short play Finale has been produced in New York City, Chicago, Norway, Lithuania, Brighton U.K. Her production Nothing But Sky won the 2014 Jessie for Significant Artistic Achievement. She created NiX, Canada’s first theatre of snow and ice, which premiered at ATP’s playRites Festival in Calgary and was a centrepiece production in the Vancouver 2010 Cultural Olympiad up in Whistler.

She also wrote and directed the outdoor extravaganza Other Freds in 2005, also won a Jessie award for Expanding the Scope of Site-Specific Theatre. That production featured 125 community members and 35 professional artists, including 7 roving musicians, a bicycle ballet, kayak stampede, and a cruise ship conga line. Other credits include: The One that Got Away (playwright/performer, Winner: Outstanding Production 2002), The Last Stand (co-writer/performer), Box2 (co-writer/performer, Winner: Best Actress), Bonehouse, (playwright, adapted for CBC radio, Nomination: Outstanding Script), The Last Five Years (director, Nomination: Outstanding Director), and Medea (director). She is also the recipient of the Sam Payne Award for Best Emerging Director. Over the last few years she has mentored 30 companies in creating original site specific premieres for the Fringe Festival. She trained at Ecole du Phillipe du Gaulier, Central School of Speech and Drama, and University of Oregon.

Kris Fleerackers

Block P

Kris Fleerackers is a puppeteer living in Gibsons, BC. He has created and manipulated various types of puppets, from parade giants to miniature marionettes, and has performed with The Bread and Puppet Theatre in New York as well as at the Vancouver Olympics Cultural Olympiad, the European Festival, and other community events. In 2017, after a long career as a public television producer and video editor, he took the leap to make his life-long passion for performing objects his profession. His first major project was a puppet version of Henry Purcell’s baroque opera Dido and Aeneas, staged live with the singers and musicians of Vancouver’s Postmodern Camerata.

Kris’ education includes Performance Studies at New York University, Theatre Studies at Antwerp University, puppetry intensives at The Banff Centre and Humber College, as well as workshops in puppetry, puppet construction, shadow, mask and object theatre, improv, and Pochinko clown.

Caitlin Fysh

Block A

Caitlin is a theatre artist with a nomadic past, now calling Vancouver home. Most recently Caitlin tried her hand at directing, cutting her teeth with the 2017 Brave New Play Rites Festival with a piece called Audition. In British Columbia she has worked primarily as an actor, most recently seen in Theatre NorthWest’s Alice in Wonderland and Untitled 2 for Railtown Lab’s Untitled Series. She also did two seasons at the Shaw Festival as the Assistant Set & Costume Designer. She is a graduate of George Brown College’s Acting program and holds a BFA (Hon) from York University in Theatre Production & Design.

David Geary

David Geary is a playwright, screenwriter, fiction writer, dramaturg and educator. He teaches film studies at Capilano University. He’s been the Senior Lecturer in Scriptwriting at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand; the dramaturg/director for Native Earth workshops in Toronto; and has led Block A for the PTC for four years. Last season he also collaborated in mentoring the Julius Caesar Project with PTC, The Cultch and Western Gold as well as working as a dramaturg with several writers. David believes storytelling and scriptwriting are muscles that are best developed through exercises. His yogic mantra is – Life is short, stretch it – and he writes haiku on twitter @gearsgeary.

Rosemary Georgeson

Collaborations

Rosemary Georgeson is a Coast Salish/Sahtu Dene artist, storyteller and writer from Galiano Island. Born and raised in the commercial fishing industry, and with a background in the Culinary Arts, she was the Aboriginal Storyteller at the Vancouver Public Library and has worked as an artist and community liaison for Vancouver Moving Theatre and urban ink productions. She co-wrote We’re All In this Together and Storyweaving.

Rachael Goddard-Rebstein

Block P

Rachael Goddard-Rebstein is a recent graduate from UBC and has an interdisciplinary master’s degree in English, Psychology and Film and Theatre. She completed a play as her master’s thesis based on the life of the medieval mystic Margery Kempe. She also enjoys writing fiction and poetry, and has published articles in student newspapers and academic journals.

Kagan Goh

Block P

Kagan Goh is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, published author, spoken word artist, mental health advocate and activist who uses writing, film and spoken word storytelling to educate the public about mental health issues and break the silence about the taboo of mental illness and fight the stigma against people with mental health challenges. Surviving Samsara is a 60-minute multimedia, multidisciplinary live theatrical production bringing together theatre, spoken word, music, film, audiovisuals, etc. Created by artist Kagan Goh based on his struggles with manic depression, this work breaks the taboo of silence about mental illness. Surviving Samsara traces his journey towards recovery, acceptance and unconditional self-love. The show spans two decades as Kagan struggles to survive the highs of mania and the lows of depression. The work offers intimate insights into an ‘insider’s’ experience of madness as a survivor. Kagan exposes the damaging effects of the stigma of mental illness and explores manic depression not only as a disorder but also as a spiritual emergence – a vehicle for personal growth, healing and transcendence.

Becky Gold

Block A

Becky is a recent graduate of UBC’s Master of Theatre Studies program. Her research explored artistic praxis and training methodology for individuals with developmental disabilities. She is passionate about accessibility in the arts, specifically as it relates to theatrical training and performance opportunities for all individuals. Previously, Becky worked in Toronto as a drama facilitator – supporting individuals with a range of cognitive and physical disabilities. Becky is excited to work with and support Niall McNeil as his creative assistant in the 2017 Block A.

Tai Amy Grauman

WrightSpace (Colony)

Tai Amy Grauman is Metis, Cree and Haudenosaunee from Ardrossan, Alberta. She has a BFA in Acting from UBC with a minor in First Nations Studies. Tai recently received this year’s Jessie Richardson award for most promising newcomer. She was also Vancouver’s Mayor’s Emerging Theatre Artist of 2015, nominated by Margo Kane. Tai is currently Savage Society’s Artist in Residence. She is also working with Nightswimming on a commission of a new play which will be developed over the next five years called Her name is Marie. Over this upcoming season, she will also be developing her play You used to call me Marie. Her name is Marie and You used to call me Marie are companion pieces which centre the history of the creation of Treaty 6 through the perspective of Marie Callihoo. Tai is also co-creating a play called And she fell from the Sky… for YPT’s Leaps and Bound initiative. Recent acting credits include: Thanks For Giving (Arts Club), THOWXIYA (Axis Theatre), The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Carousel Theatre) and Weaving Reconciliation (Vancouver Moving Theatre). Tai also wrote and directed Her name was Mary at the 2017 Vancouver Fringe Festival. She was recently in Lytton as Kevin Loring’s assistant director for Savage Society’s play The council of Spider, Ant and Fly. Upcoming Tai will be participating in Native Earth’s Weesageechak Festival as part of the acting company and with her play You used to call me Marie.

Zaffi Green

Zaffi Green is a writer, artist and teacher working in multiple art forms. She performed poetry and character monologues in festivals throughout Canada and the US, often fusing her words with music, visual art, video, and movement. Her current projects include a travel memoir focused on Greece and Turkey, and a solo theatre arts show exploring online dating and celebrity worship. She also creates unique three-dimensional art pieces through decoupage, using natural surfaces, plant materials and hand-made papers from Nepal. She shares her love of all things creative through arts-based programming for all ages.

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Robert Garry Haacke

Block A

Originally from Pinawa, Manitoba, Robert is thrilled to be a part of Block A at PTC for 2017! He is a professional actor working on stage and on screen throughout Vancouver. Most recently Robert has appeared on stage as a hunchbacked mutant for Green Thumb Theatre’s latest school tour of Land of Trash. Other appearances include The Beaux Stratagem (United Players), Common Grace (Pacific Theatre), Right Hand Man (UBC). Recently Robert presented a reading of his one-person show – touch – at the rEvolver Theatre Festival. Robert is a proud graduate of Studio 58’s Stage Acting Program.

Jordan Hall

Jordan Hall is an award-winning playwright whose work has been dubbed “stellar, insightful” by Plank Magazine, “thoughtful” by CBC Radio, and “vivid, memorable” by NOW. Her first full-length play, Kayak, won Samuel French’s 2010 Canadian Playwrights Competition, and has garnered acclaim across Canada.

She was Playwright-in-Residence at Pi Theatre, and as a screenwriter, Jordan recently co-created Carmilla: The Series for SmokeBomb Entertainment. She has been a finalist in both the LA Comedy Fest and Beverly Hills Short Screenplay Competitions, as well as a winner of the Crazy8s Short Film Production Competition. As a dramaturg, Jordan worked on The Hearing of Jeremy Hinzman at the 2012 Summerworks Festival, and spent five years as a mentor for UBC’s Booming Ground program.

Robert Hamilton

WrightSpace (Colony)

Robert is a Vancouver-based writer, originally from New Brunswick. He is a poet, a writer for film and stage, and diarist – journalling his life since 1988. He was employed in the prison system for many years, and currently works with the disenfranchised in the downtown south. He is a past participant in the Block A and M programs at PTC; a past Writer Resident at the Canadian Film Centre, and past Fellow with Praxis. His ten-minute play Boyfish was part of the 2018 Newmarket National Ten-Minute Play Festival. Robert is excited to be part of WrightSpace and looking forward to developing his script, Our Story: Coming out in the time of HIV and AIDS.

Melisa Hernandez P

Block A

Melisa is a Mexican-Canadian interdisciplinary artist with a focus on sculpture installation and performance. Melisa’s main source of exploring identity is through her body and the space it occupies; through its processes, functions, origin, and shape. Melisa recently graduated from UBC Okanagan’s Interdisciplinary Performance program. Her current work explores feminist concepts of the female body’s processes and cycles. To see/hear/read more work by Melisa Hernandez P, visit her website.

Kanon Hewitt

Block A

Kanon Hewitt is a sound and projection designer, stage manager, playwright, and performer. Kanon has created and performed for various international stages including the Vancouver Fringe Festival (Vancouver), MACHiNENOiSEY Dance Society (Vancouver), United Players of Vancouver (Vancouver), Ensemble Theatre Company (Vancouver), MTV Japan (Tokyo), Benesse (Tokyo), Issey Miyake (Tokyo), and Ken Dance Company (Los Angeles). They are an undergraduate student in the Department of Theatre and Film at the University of British Columbia. Kanon’s interdisciplinary creative generation explores mixed-race identity both in and out of Japan, Japanese diaspora in the West, and queer identities intersecting with cultural values. They are currently developing a new work as part of the Virago Play Series which tackles the themes of militarization, the global rise of extreme right-wing governments, and queer revolution.

Janet Hinton

WrightSpace (Colony)

The plays of award-winning playwright Janet Hinton have been produced in Ontario, Alberta and BC. As a dramaturge, Janet has worked with respected playwrights like Kevin Kerr, Conni Massing and Ken Brown.

Her dynamic approach to teaching drama, writing, piano and pain management has inspired others to live creatively. In addition to her success as a playwright, Janet is a published fiction and health writer. She is currently at work on a novel… and exploring the art of floating…in her play Aiming to Float.

Jessica Hood

Block A

Jessica Hood is Rumble Theatre’s Artistic Associate for their 2017/18 season. She holds a BFA in Theatre Performance from SFU. Jessica is an emerging theatre artist who works primarily as an actor, but also as a producer and costume designer. Selected performance credits include Acceleration (Sugarworks); Voices from Chernobyl, an original production that told the verbatim stories of the survivors (The Troika Collective); and the title role in Olya the Child (The Troika Collective). She is also a singer in Vostok, an acapella trio that specializes in music from Eastern Europe and the Balkans.

Matt Horrigan

Block P

Matthew Horrigan is a writer and composer from Barrhaven, Nepean, Ottawa, where he started his illustrious career by composing songs for a nameless high school grunge band. His poems have subsequently appeared in a bunch of poetry journals including ditch, Steps, The Veg, Poetry Quarterly and Infinity’s Kitchen, as well as providing text for his musical compositions, of which 2015’s Kyrie and In the Minimal Senses won prizes at the 2016 SOCAN Foundation Young Composer Awards. Matthew holds a B.Mus in music composition from McGill and an MFA in Interdisciplinary Studies from Simon Fraser University, where he has since taught computer music as a sessional instructor. In winter 2016 he travelled to Huddersfield University to research electroacoustic composition under the supervision of Pierre-Alexandre Tremblay, and he currently works on the Musebot musical metacreation project with Arne Eigenfeldt. As a sound designer and composer for dance and theatre Matthew’s work has appeared in performances throughout the BC lower mainland, most recently in the children’s play The Green Wanderer, directed by Julia Siedlanowska for King Matt Theatre (of which the eponymous Matt is not related).

Matt’s best day during summer 2017 was June 23rd, when he presented his site-adaptive post-apocalyptic musical work Follow Turtle Chase Leaves with the Ecstatic Waves ensemble at 240 Northern Street, Vancouver and then ran down the street to the Fox Cabaret to play drums with the Harley Small band. He is now pursuing performances for his growing collection of theatre scripts, especially his play Farhaven, which tells the story of a dragon’s impact on a sheltered suburb. Matthew likes art best when it brings audiences together to celebrate the invigoratingly bizarre. To this end, he continues to integrate a multidisciplinary practice that values connections between text, music, technology and performative presence.

Christina Jastrzembska

Block A

Christina Jastrzembska, actor/singer, has been performing across Canada on stages, in film, tv, and cartoons for over 40 years. And during those years has amassed folder-fulls of writings, mostly her own. A promise to her dying mother to write her family’s story led her to PTC, and she is thrilled to be working with Elaine Avila and her mighty cohorts in Block A.

Arvind Johal

Block SAT

Arvind Johal was born and raised in Surrey BC. Having a love of the arts and dreams of becoming and actor at a young age, Arvind was the lead in his first play at the age of 11 and hasn’t looked back. Arvind graduated from Vancouver Film School’s acting for film and television program in 2008 as class valedictorian.

Since then he had gone on to play the lead in a National Film Board produced film that was nominated for a Leo award as well as several independent films. He as also appeared on network television programs on Fox, Showcase, Bravo and NBC. Arvind has a creative writing degree from Kwantlen Polytechnic University.

Arno Kamolika

Block SAT

Arno is a Vancouver-based Bharatanatyam dance artist and instructor. She has studied Bharatanatyam and Manipuri under esteemed Gurus in Bangladesh, India and Canada including C.V. Chandrasekhar, Jai Govinda, Bragha Bessel, Sharmila Banerjee and Belayet Hossain. A graduate in Architecture, her experience and training in various art disciplines and dance styles like music, mime, theatre and other contemporary dance forms, has complemented her work as a dancer. Over the past few years, Arno has been an integral part of Mandala Arts as an instructor and as a solo performer. Arno’s rich repertoires of performances have taken her across the globe at various festivals in USA, Germany, India and Bangladesh. She is currently working on projects that create a bridge between the traditional framework of Bharatanatyam and Bengali poetry and music of Rabindranath Tagore.

Hiro Kanagawa

PTC Associates

Like many Canadian artists Hiro has forged a career wearing many hats: actor, playwright, screenwriter, teacher. His plays range from the war crimes drama Tiger of Malaya (Factory Theatre, National Arts Centre, Gateway Theatre) to the Christmas fable The Patron Saint of Stanley Park (Arts Club, Halifax Theatre for Young People, Theatre NorthWest) to the Puccini sequel Tom Pinkerton: The Ballad of Butterfly’s Son with music by David MacIntyre (short-listed for the 2012 Playwrights Guild of Canada New Musical Award).

His most recent play, Indian Arm premiered in spring 2015 with Vancouver’s Rumble Theatre and received the Jessie Richardson Award for Outstanding Original Script. Hiro’s screen credits include work as both an actor and story editor on the critically-acclaimed series Da Vinci’s Inquest, Da Vinci’s City Hall, Intelligence, and Blackstone, and recurring guest star roles on iZombie, Dark Matter, Heroes Reborn, and The Man in the High Castle. He teaches playwriting at Capilano University and is a youth football coach.

Ayush Kathuria

Block SAT

Ayush is currently a student at UBC Vancouver majoring in Psychology. His past experience is mostly related to writing a couple of street plays. His work seeks to provide modern adaptation to age-old folk tales, revisiting past historical figures through a different perspective and shedding new light on old tales.

Jesse Kaur Lehail

Block SAT

Jessie is a multidisciplinary storyteller, who explores the intersection of communications, culture, and creativity to create dialogues and projects that push forward ideas of identity, belonging, memory, and sense of place. She has a passion for exploring untold stories. Her work to date focuses on empowering South Asians and offers audiences ways to expand their knowledge and challenge existing assumptions.

With undergraduate degrees in Cultural Geography and Marketing/Accounting, a Post Graduate Diploma in Public Relations, and a Master’s Degree in Public Relations and Communications, Jessie weaves academia into her work. She has a strong focus on contemporary critica and cultural theory, ethnicity, gender, and feminism that has provided the praxis for professional and community arts and in issue-based collaborations with non-profits, educational institutes and corporations.

Peg Keenleyside

Block P

Peg Keenleyside is an actor/writer/director and producer. She has co-written and produced new Canadian plays including Smoke Damage (Nightwood Theatre) and Hockey Wives (Factory Theatre). Actor credits include the National Arts Centre, Centre Stage and the Blyth Festival. Directing credits include In Their Nightgowns, Dancing at UBC, and the political comedy Proud at Capilano University. Peg is currently producing the new comedy Obit at the 2017 Fringe Festival.

Ian Kent

Block A

Ian first started producing theatre when his two children’s plays, The Kingship of NNNNorp! and Witches’ Brew: Carrot Stew were produced at the Edmonton International Fringe Festival. More recently, he wrote, produced and directed the play Abattoir Morning for or; theatre (ortheatre.com). In India, Ian taught Shakespeare to Tibetan artists in exile and edited and contributed to Contact magazine. His poems have been published in Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine, The Prairie Journal, Scrivener Creative Review, Rhubarb and Contemporary Verse 2.His fiction has appeared in The Prairie Journal. His non-fiction has appeared in Rhubarb.

Sidney Klips

Block A

Sidney has grown up on the West Coast performing and practicing as a multidisciplinary theatre artist. She trained as a competitive dancer through her pre-professional years, (specializing in contemporary and musical theatre) and was greatly influenced and mentored by choreographer Rachael Poirier. She is a graduate of the Arts Umbrella Theatre Conservatory acting program, and is currently completing her BA in Political Science and Theatre at UBC. She was Assistant Director to the AU Musical Theatre troupe’s productions of Urinetown and Spoon River Anthology, and recently assisted on a devised production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Places des Arts.

She also enjoys teaching early learners at Lights Up! Musical Theatre. As a performer, Sidney was most recently seen in Awkward Stage Productions’ “Pick of the Fringe”-winning production of Cry-Baby, as Iris in Girl in the Goldfish Bowl at Studio 16, as Julie in Between Shifts’ production of Kayak, and in Fugue Theatre’s workshop of Les Filles du Roi. Next up, catch her playing Aileen in the new musical Two Views of the Sylvia at the Waterfront Theatre in November. As a playwright she is interested in women in global affairs, the politicization of bodies and the representation of disability and intersectional female stories on stage.

Frances Koncan

WrightSpace (Colony)

Frances is an Anishinaabe interdisciplinary theatre artist from Couchiching First Nation. She holds an MFA in Playwriting from the City University of New York – Brooklyn College and a BA in Psychology from The University of Manitoba. Her work as a playwright focuses on the reclamation of Indigenous heritage within contemporary landscapes, almost always includes the use of the word “hella”, and draws from the guiding principal of short Millennial attention spans. Her plays include Riot Resist Revolt Repeat, zahgidiwin/love, After the Ball is Over, How to Talk to Human Beings, The Dance-off of Conscious Uncoupling, and Little Red. In 2017 she was the recipient of a REVEAL Indigenous Art Award and the Winnipeg Arts Council’s RBC On The Rise Award for emerging artists. She is currently based in Winnipeg. Follow her on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat under @franceskoncan!

Taran Kootenhayo

WrightSpace (Colony)

Taran is a Denésuliné and Nakoda Sioux actor, spoken word poet and playwright. Born in Cold Lake, AB (1993), he is now based out of Vancouver, BC. He received his Acting for Stage & Screen diploma from Capilano University in 2015, is signed with Premiere Talent Management, and is in Full Circle’s First Nations Performance Ensemble. Past written projects have included work with the SOAR Aboriginal Arts Program, Cuywsti and Tom Cone’s Sacred Space Festival.

Jessica Leung

Block P

Jessica Leung is a DeafPOC(Person of Colour), Asian Taiwanese and Chinese, gender neutral person currently living, working and performing as a settler on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded Coast Salish territories of the Musqueam, Tsleil-Waututh, and Squamish peoples. Jessica is a poet, dancer, movement artist and visual artist, hoping to combine movement with sign language (American Sign Language), which overlaps Jessica’s own journey. Jessica is learning and creating through collaboration or as an individual in the hopes of bringing their intersectional cultural focus to work in both the hearing and the Deaf world.

Milton Lim

Block A

Milton Lim is a Vancouver-based theatre director/designer and multi-disciplinary performer. He holds a BFA (Hons.) in theatre performance from Simon Fraser University. His recent work integrates digital media and live performance, and employs consequential game mechanics, typography architecture, and high-frequency content readability. Milton was awarded the Ray Michal Prize for Outstanding Body of Work by an Emerging Director at the 2016 Jessie Richardson Theatre Awards.

He has created works for and performed in various international festivals including the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival (Vancouver), the Gateway Pacific Theatre Festival (Richmond), CanAsian Dance Festival (Toronto), Uno Fest (Victoria), rEvolver Theatre Festival (Vancouver), Dancing on the Edge (Vancouver), Risk/Reward Festival (Portland), and the Seattle International Dance Festival.

In Vancouver, Milton has had the pleasure of working with MACHiNENOiSY Dance Theatre, Playwright’s Theatre Centre, Gateway Theatre, Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre, Centre A Gallery, and the Vancouver Art Gallery among others. Recent acting credits include the Woodsman in Boca del Lupo’s Big Bad, and the Host in Theatre Conspiracy’s award-winning immersive show: Foreign Radical.

During his undergrad, Milton was a company member of the laboratory performance collective, Attic Salt, where he trained with visiting international artists, exploring artistic evolution in both performance and pedagogy.

Milton most often creates his original works as a Co-Artistic Director of his interdisciplinary company, Hong Kong Exile; he is also an Artistic Associate with Theatre Conspiracy.

Britt MacLeod

Block A

Britt MacLeod is a queer Vancouver-based artist. A multi-disciplinary graduate of Capilano University’s Musical Theatre Program, she works as an actor, singer, composer-lyricist, spoken word/interdisciplinary-artist and writer. Her written work has been featured in In Bloom Magazine, RFD Magazine, and the anthology/album, Stories, by the band, Hildegard’s Ghost.

She is the Composer/Lyricist for the new musical, Carry On, which was the winning piece at Awkward Stage Productions’ inaugural 24 Hour Musical Smackdown Competition. Carry On has been developed into an extended one-act musical which will premiere at the 2016 Vancouver Fringe Festival (Britt will reprise her lead role). Other performance credits include: Hamelin: A New Fable, Axis Theatre; Crazy For You, Gateway Theatre; The Light In The Piazza, Patrick Street Productions and Persephone Theatre; BC BUDS Festival; Arts On The Fly Festival; Dances For A Small Stage, MovEnt; Featured Performer and Semi-Finalist at the 2014 Canadian Festival of Spoken Word; and the 2010 Winter Olympics. Britt also sings with the jazz group Ladybird, and writes songs for and fronts the pop project, Rio By Night. Rio By Night’s first full-length album, Yet The World, will be released later this year. Britt is over the moon to be joining the talented group of artists in this season’s Block A.

Michelle Martin

Block A

Michelle is an accomplished actor and producer who has worked extensively across Canada. She is a founding member, producer and Marketing & Communications Director of Classic Chic Productions, classicchic.ca. She played Tom Hagen and Carlo in Classic Chic’s production of Corleone: The Shakespearean Godfather at Pacific Theatre, directed by Mindy Parfitt. Next came career highlight Ricky Roma in Classic Chic’s acclaimed production of David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross, directed by Rachel Peake. She was also thrilled to play the tortured Antigonus in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale directed by Lisa Wolpe, Artistic Director of Los Angeles Women’s Shakespeare Company.

Michelle played the title role in Daniel MacIvor’s one-woman show, See Bob Run, at One Yellow Rabbit Performance Theatre in Calgary and Workshop West Theatre in Edmonton. Both of these companies also presented her own acclaimed one-woman show, To Hear With Eyes, in their main stage seasons. Other selected theatre credits include Colette in Four Dogs and a Bone (Havana Theatre), Les Liaisons Dangereuses and A Christmas Carol (Theatre Calgary), The Importance of Being Earnest and Fool for Love (Theatre Junction), Cressida (Workshop West), Misalliance and Night Must Fall (Shaw Festival), 1-900-Dee-Lite (Persephone Theatre), All in the Timing (Summer at the Roxy), Hitting Town (Alchemy Theatre Projects), Cymbeline (Shakespeare in the Rough), Twelfth Night (University of Toronto, Graduate Centre for Drama) and Summerfolk (Equity Showcase Theatre).

Film/TV credits include Lost in Space, Frequency, Dead of Summer, The Romeo Section, The Whispers, Gracepoint, Supernatural, A Novel Romance, Accidental Obsession, two seasons as a series lead on the CBC evening drama, Riverdale, CTV’s Traders, the independent feature film, Backroads, and the short film Sleepwalk (2012 Audience Choice Award, New York City Horror Film Festival).

Michelle graduated from York University’s theatre program with a Bachelor of Fine Arts. She lives in beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia.

Ariel Martz-Oberlander

Block P

Ariel Martz-Oberlander is a theatre artist, writer, teacher and activist based in Vancouver. Her work explores the intersection of spectator and agitator in an attempt to find the personal in the global. Her newest play, created with support from the LEAP program, in which the climate crisis is explored through the lens of a woman losing her memory and the river who tries to understand her humanity, will be read at Arts Club in April 2017.

Jennifer McKay-Martin

Block A

Jennifer Martin is a Vancouver-based storyteller, performer and playwright. A teller of both traditional tales and personal stories, Jennifer can be found sharing stories at various locations around town. Jennifer’s one-woman show Everything Is Fine premiered at the Vancouver Fringe Festival in 2016, marking her return to theatre after several years away.

Jennifer is grateful to the PTC and the Block A program for providing such an inspiring and inclusive atmosphere. She maintained her membership with the PTC for most of those years spent doing other things. It was a lifeline. She is glad to be in the company of writers, actors, and directors once again.

Niall McNeil

Block A

Niall has been involved with theatre from an early age through his long association with the Caravan Farm Theatre and acting with Leaky Heaven Circus in Vancouver since its inception in 1999. He performed in many Leaky shows including Leaky Heaven Circus – Part One, Typhoon, Conference of the Birds, Birthday Boy, King Llyr, Zigguart, Bonobo and Salome. In 2011 Leaky Heaven and Neworld Theatre co-produced Peter Panties, a play written by Niall and Marcus Youssef which was performed at the Push Festival. Peter Panties won a Jesse Richardson Critics’ Choice Innovation Award for theatre.

Niall has most recently been involved in King Arthur’s Night, a play produced by Neworld Theatre, co-created and co-written by Niall, Neworld Artistic Director Marcus Youssef, musical composer Veda Hille and director James Long. Niall performed the role of King Arthur. King Arthur’s Night was commissioned by the Luminato Festival and, in June 2017, it was performed at Luminato and at the National Arts Centre as part of the Canada Scene Festival. Niall loves researching new ideas, writing music and writing plays. Niall also enjoys teaching acting with his friends at the Down Syndrome Research Foundation.

Liam Monaghan

Block A

Originally from Lethbridge, Alberta, Liam Monaghan is a writer, theatre artist, and educator now based in Vancouver. His plays include How to Leave, which was produced by Theatre Outré in Lethbridge in 2015 during the Pretty, Witty, and Gay Festival, and The Boy in the Chrysalis, which was produced by the Queer Acts Theatre Festival in Halifax in 2015 and again in 2018 by Hapax Theatre during the Victoria Fringe Festival, where it won “Best Solo Show.” Liam has published non-fiction in The Dalhousie Review. His website is liammonaghan.com.

Renae Morriseau

Collaborations

Renae Morriseau is Cree and Saulteaux from Manitoba. She works across Canada and the US in theatre, film, television and music. Recently, Renae toured internationally with her singing group M’Girl; served as Aboriginal Storyteller at the Vancouver Public Library and directed Down2Earth, an APTN TV Series on green-energy developments and sustainability projects in Maori (New Zealand) and First Nations (Canada) communities. Community building projects include the winter outdoor production Contest of the Winds with Caravan Farm Theatre, the community play Tuwitames with Splatsin Language Program (Secwepemc Nation)/Runaway Moon Theatre, and co-writing In the Heart of a City: The Downtown Eastside Community Play and Storyweaving with Vancouver Moving Theatre.

Adele Noronha

Block SAT

Born and raised in India, Adele immigrated to Canada at the age of eleven. She is a graduate of Studio 58 and currently a Vancouver-based theatre artist. As an actor, Adele has worked with a variety of theatre companies throughout Vancouver, including the frank theatre, Upintheair, Electric Company, Western Gold, Virtual Stage and Bard on the Beach. In 2017 Adele was the Outreach Coordinator and guest curator with Upintheair Theatre’s rEvolver Theatre Festival for emerging artists. Recent performances include Walt Whitman’s Secret (the frank theatre) and The Only Good Indian (Pandemic Theatre, rEvolver Festival 2018).

Falcon oHara

Block A

Hello, Falcon oHara, here. I prefer life in the first person rather than the third. I have a passion for self-awareness and personal growth. And I’m hoping to learn how to breathe that same passion into the characters of my novel and my play.

I’ve written all my life, mostly poetry, essays, and autobiographical sketches, and lately more and more dialogue. I love to sing, and I studied piano for many years when I was young. I wrote my first real song in the year 2000. And in 2001, I sat down and wrote twenty-four new ones. Which is how I came to know a group of characters whose stories form the intertwining core of a musical play I’ve been working on ever since. Those characters seem so real to me. And I have a dream to see them come alive on a stage one day. I trust our adventures together in PTCs Block A and with David Geary will help all of us realize our dreams.

Debbie Patterson

WrightSpace (Colony)

Debbie Patterson is a Winnipeg playwright, director and actor. Trained at the National Theatre School of Canada, she is a founding member and current artistic associate of Shakespeare in the Ruins, served as Theatre Ambassador for Winnipeg’s Cultural Capital year and as Artistic Associate at Prairie Theatre Exchange. She was the U of W Carol Shields Writer in Residence 2012 and Playwright in Residence at Theatre Projects Manitoba in 2014/15 and is currently a member of the PTE Playwrights Unit.

Playwriting credits include Sargent & Victor & Me, the musical Head, Candy From a Baby, and Molotov Circus. In 2014 she was honoured with the United Nations Platform for Action Committee’s annual Activist Award. She lives in Winnipeg with her family: Arne, Gislina and Solmund.

Linda Quibell

Linda has been, over the span of her long career, an actor, singer, writer, artistic director, producer, administrator, designer, publicist, and crew member, but her proudest accomplishments have been those ineffable moments when the stars align and it all just works. She is known for her long association with Felix Culpa and many of its works: The Compleat Works of Love, Salman Rushdie and Me…a love story, The Designated Mourner, UND, etc. She has performed for many theatres across the country (Arts Club, Touchstone, Bard on the Beach, The Globe), won some awards, created new works, performed the classics, and is excited to get back to writing after a long hiatus.

Zahida Rahemtulla

Zahida is an emerging writer of fiction and theatre. She studied Literature and Middle Eastern Studies at New York University in New York and Abu Dhabi. Her play-in-progress, The Wrong Bashir, was recently granted a spot in Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre’s annual new play development program in partnership with the Playwrights Theatre Centre. Zahida is a current student at the SFU Writer’s Studio, where she studies fiction. She works in the immigrant and refugee non-profit sector.

Anoushka Ratnarajah

Anoushka Ratnarajah is a queer, mixed race femme of Sri Lankan and British ancestry, and an interdisciplinary and transnational artist and arts organizer. She has a BFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia and an MA in Arts Politics from NYU. She has worked as a producer, performer, writer and arts organizer with cultural and arts organizations in Vancouver, Montreal and New York. She has been a fellow with The Hemispheric Institute for Performance and Politics and Voices of Our Nation Arts. Her art practice engages with many social, political and cultural issues, through a critical intersectional lens. She creates work that shines a light on histories and contemporary stories that are underrepresented in mainstream theatre and performance. Her most recent creative projects include Capital, Alice!, an anti-capitalist, Alice in Wonderland-themed musical; and partnered projects with Kalik and Shapeshift Arts, including Dear Armen. Upcoming work includes Setting Bones and a solo show, Mixed Vegetable.

Lili Robinson

Fringe New Play Prize

Lili Robinson is a multidisciplinary theatre artist and a graduate of the acting program at Studio 58. Her intersectionality as a queer, biracial Black woman is mirrored by her approach to devising work, which explores the creative space where poetry, music, and physical theatre collide. As an actor she has worked with companies including Boca del Lupo, Theatre Replacement, and The Troika Collective. Her first play, Chimera, co-written with close friend and collaborator Heather Barr, debuted as part of FourPlay at Studio 58 in 2018. In 2019 she will be developing a new play with the mentorship of Carmen Aguirre through the Emerging Playwright Mentorship at Rumble Theatre, as well as stepping into the position of Artistic Producing Intern at Theatre Replacement. She is the assistant director to Mike Stack at Theatre Temp, where they are developing two new collective creation pieces with students from Templeton Secondary in East Van.

Lenore Rowntree

Block P

Lenore Rowntree is a lucky writer who lives in Vancouver and Gibsons—both are hard places to leave, something she thinks about on the ferry. Her most recent publications are Dovetail Joint and other stories (Quadra Books), and Cluck, a novel (Thistledown Press). She also co-edited the anthology Hidden Lives: true stories from people who live with mental illness (Brindle & Glass), and her poetry is included in The Best of the Best of Canadian Poetry (Tightrope Books).

She is currently working on the production of SRO documentary theatre conceived by her and written in conjunction with members of the Motivation, Power & Achievement Society, a group which supports people who live with mental illness. Although we hope there will be Standing Room Only for the production, SRO in this production means Single Room Occupancy. The typical SRO is a 10’ by 8’room, often in a sketchy part of town and often the person living there is someone with a disability.

Jotika

Block SAT

Jotika is a multidisciplinary artist; she is a storyteller who uses song, spoken word, performance art and visual art. She is a settler who was born and lives on the land of the Musqueam, Skxwú7mesh, & Tsleil-Waututh peoples. As part of her creative art process and in her own personal healing she aims to continually work towards decolonizing her practices & build relationships alongside Indigenous folks, with deep gratitude, who continue to experiences effects and damage of colonization.

As a Queer women of colour, Fijian of Indian decent, Jotika creates art that explores themes of Diaspora, healing from trauma, connecting to her ancestors, reconnection, and decolonizing. Jotika has created numerous spaces that center QTBIPOC ( Queer, Trans, Black, Indigenous, and People of Colours ) voices; events where we can share our art and our narratives that far too often are pushed to the margins. Jotika is an effective and seasoned community organizer; from fundraisers for friends in need and social justice conferences, to artisan craft markets and performance showcases, Jotika has over four year experience spearheading successful events that act as places of learning and growing together. This past year Jotika was published, alongside other QT Desi writers, in a book entitled Moving Truths(s) Queer and Transgender writing on Family. She has also been featured in various zines created in the lower mainland and on the Island which include: Pulse, Thirdspace, and the upcoming Asian Disapora Zine. Over the past few years Jotika’s art has been showcased in community Art shows such as: at the Solstice Café, a show entitled: QT2IPOC? a collection of Art by Queer, Trans, Two Spirit, Indigenous and People of colour Artists, with the Queer Arts Festival’s community art show summer 2015, and this past winter with Gallery Gachet with New Access Consortium Presents: A Collective Audit of the Vancouver Art Gallery. She is currently working on creating her ZineAlbum entitled: Brown Body Stories: Shameless Truth Telling which will be a collection of her SongPoems alongside a zine with her visual art. At the launch for her album she will be sharing a one women show she has been creating and working towards. As an arts based facilitator and social worker Jotika has started to incorporate her passion for healing through the arts into her work; she plans to complete training to become an Expressive Art Therapist, to further the healing and support work she is already doing within her communities. Check out her art and info about performances at: ‘Jotikart Creations’ on Facebook.

Mannu Sandhu

Block SAT

Mannu Sandhu is a Canadian actress/ model now residing in Mumbai to pursue her career in Indian Cinema as an actress. She studied political science and criminology from Douglas Collage and the Justice Institute of British Columbia. She then pursued her career in acting and starting coaching at the Actors Foundary, Vancouver. Her first Canadian Feature Film was Footsteps into Gangland, a topic which is of high importance in Canadian households today. The film was about a teenager living in a foster home and getting sexually abused at home and influenced by the drug dealers of Vancouver on the streets. She gives high importance to topics that bring awareness to her community. She has done five feature films so far and is working on new projects in India. She also holds the title of Miss Universe Canada Miss Humanitarian for her ongoing community work in Canada. She has been spearheading the most prominent South Asian Film Festival in the City of Vancouver for the past five years and she has become a force between India and Canada to help join the two countries in the Entertainment Sector.

Jessica Schacht

Block A

Jessica Schacht is a theatre artist based on Vancouver Island. As a professional stage manager with a specialization in new work she has helped bring theatre to life behind the scenes from BC to Ontario, most recently as the assistant stage manager for the World Premiere of Children of God (Urban Ink/The Cultch/National Arts Centre). Now Jessica is turning her attention to writing, directing and dramaturgy. She is an associate member of the Playwrights Guild of Canada and the Playwrights Theatre Centre, and the apprentice dramaturg for Theatre One’s Emerging Voices series. Jessica is a graduate of the University of Victoria’s Theatre Program and has studied at the Banff Centre. She made her debut as a playwright and director at the 2017 Vancouver Fringe Festival with Adult Company. Born and raised on Vancouver Island, she is proud of her Métis heritage and now calls the Cowichan Valley home.

Rebecca Schneidereit

Block A

Rebecca Schneidereit is a Halifax-born writer-slash-wanderer who left a comfy nest in Prague to sojourn in BC. She’s 100% pure theatre geek, acting and directing as well as writing: her last role was as a Kit Kat Girl in a North London amateur production of Cabaret. She’s often mired in “work” writing (a mix of PR, journalism, and most recently, comics and video games), and she’s a self-confessed “lapsed playwright” (prolific in her school days, lazy ever since). She’s very excited to use Block A to explore her theatrical voice, and to meet like-minded artists in the city she now calls home.

Rebecca’s a rock music junkie, a horror movie buff, and a global tumbleweed still reeling from a midwinter stay in Copenhagen. Her writing is cynical, satirical, barbed and blunt – well, aside from her penchant for fairy tale-esque happy endings.

Taylor Scott

Block A

Kamila Sediego

Block A

Recipient of The Virago Play Series Scholarship for Block A 2017.

Kamila was born and raised in Vancouver to Filipino parents, Kamila’s work explores the duality of her first-generation cultural identity, the incredible importance of family, and the richness of her Filipino heritage. She has had the privilege of working closely with Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre as their 2015 MSG Theatre Lab finalist, and with Urban Ink as a member of their Writers’ Group, and as their 2017 Artist in Residence.

Munish Sharma

Block SAT

Originally from Regina, Saskatchewan Munish moved to Vancouver in 2007 and since has made his presence felt around the city on stages of all sizes as an actor, writer, dancer. Leading stage roles in 2014 Iceland and This Is War paved the way for Munish’s one-act play Mrs. Singh and Me, which debuted at the 2015 Vancouver Fringe Festival and was one of the shows awarded Pick of the Fringe for 2015.

Most recently Munish played the role of Bashir in Pulitzer Prize winner Ayad Akhtar’s The Invisible Hand, directed by Richard Wolfe. Produced by Pi Theatre, it ran at The Cultch in the Historic Theatre from April 5 to 23, 2016. Munish also hosts Gastown Cabaret, a monthly high-energy variety show at Guilt and Co. that he produces with burlesque beauties April O’Peel and Sparkle Plenty.

Tetsuro Shigematsu

PTC Associates

For more than twenty years, Tetsuro Shigematsu has been telling stories across an array of media. He is a playwright, actor, scholar, broadcaster, author, filmmaker, and theatre artist. At the age of 19, he became the youngest playwright to compete in the history of the Quebec Drama Festival. Originally trained in the fine arts, he found a similar creative outlet writing for CBC Television’s This Hour Has 22 Minutes. Then in 2004, he became the first person-of-colour to host a daily national radio program in Canada when he took over The Roundup on CBC Radio, where he co-wrote and co-produced nearly a thousand hours of network programming. His most recent theatre work, 1 Hour Photo garnered five Jessie nominations, including best original script.

His solo work, Empire of the Son was nominated for six Jessie awards – also for best original script – and was described by Colin Thomas as, “One of the best shows ever to come out of Vancouver. Ever…” Empire continues to tour throughout Canada and across the world. Tetsuro’s award-winning body of work in film, television, radio, new media, and theatre continues to be taught in Canadian and American universities as examples of cultural possibility.

Bahareh Shigematsu

Block P

Bahareh Shigematsu was born and raised in Tehran, and lived in four countries and nine cities. As a result, she speaks Farsi, Turkish, French and English fluently. She has produced a feature-length film, and several music videos for Persian recording artists that have been seen internationally. She is currently an Artistic Associate with VACT, and Production Manager for VACT’s play development workshops.

Gurpreet Sian

Block SAT

Gurpreet Sian is a dancer, musician, TV/Radio Personality, arts producer and the Executive Director of South Asian Arts Society, an organization he co-founded in 2005. As a performer, he has danced in dozens of international Bhangra competitions, the 2009 JUNO Awards with Russell Peters, the Vancouver 2010 Olympics and the TOIFA Bollywood Awards at BC Place Stadium.

Gurp continues to teach Bhangra dancing & Dhol drumming to adults and children at his own studio and at festivals, schools and universities across BC, including North America’s first ever University accredited Bhangra dance course at Simon Fraser University. His newest project is offering high school students Bhangra & Dhol courses for credit. His production credits include: Fish Eyes (2006) – co-presented with Neworld Theatre & the National Theatre School of Canada; The Misfit (2008) – presented at the PuSh Festival; I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter Chicken! (2010-2013) – co-presented with Bollywood Shenanigans; Stand Up! The Original Tandoori Kings of Comedy (2014); Mrs. Singh & Me (2015) – presented at the Vancouver Fringe Festival and awarded “Pick of the Fringe.” Most notably, in 2009, Gurpreet & Raakhi created a one-of-a-kind, comedic, dance musical called Bollywood Wedding. The show was co-produced by New Works and was voted the “Best Outdoor Interactive Theatre Event” of the year by The Georgia Straight. In July 2013 it was independently remounted by Gurpreet & South Asian Arts. Gurpreet is committed to raising the profile of South Asian theatre in Vancouver and across Canada, even more so since the addition of Artistic Producer Rohit Chokhani. Together, the two are working on an inaugural South Asian performing arts festival to be held across the lower mainland in fall/winter of 2016.

Julia Siedlandowska

Block A

Julia was born and is currently living as a theatre maker on unceded Coast Salish Territories. She has worked with companies such as Pacific Theatre, The Only Animal, The Arts Club, The Firehall Arts Centre, The Cultch, Full Circle First Nations Performance, Rumble Theatre, MACHiNENOiSY Dance Society, Jumblies Theatre and Classic Chic Productions. Last year she participated in the Wet Ink Collective and was a Young Ambassador for the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival. Julia was the volunteer coordinator for this year’s Talking Stick Festival and is the community liaison for MACHiNENOiSY Dance Society. Recently she was assistant director to Mindy Parfitt on Corleone (Classic Chic Productions.)

This summer she participated in Talking Treaties with Jumblies Theatre in Toronto, deepening her passion for community engaged arts. She also directed Wyspa for The Only Animal’s Generation Hot: Waterborne, a production written by herself and Kanon Hewitt and created in collaboration with five youth artists. Julia is co-artistic director of Shakespeare Unchained, a company she runs with Calgary-based dance artist Kara Nolte, which explores classic texts through dance and theatre, and is performed and created site-specifically. She holds a BA in Acting from the University of Wales.

Quelemia Sparrow

PTC Associates

Quelemia Sparrow is busy on a variety of new play projects. With PTC, she developed O’wet/Lost Lagoon, co-produced by Alley Theatre and Full Circle: First Nations Performance, originally commissioned by Full Circle: First Nations Performance.

O’wet/Lost Lagoon was in workshop in February, April and late May/June, 2016 with a production launching at the Firehall Arts Centre, June 21-25, 2016, opening on National Aboriginal Day. Quelemia is a First Nations actor and writer from the Musqueam Nation. Select acting credits: Our Town (Osimous Theatre), The Edward Curtis Project (GCTC/NAC), The Penelopiad (Arts Club Theatre), Where the Blood Mixes (Playhouse/WCT) and The Fall (Electric Company). Writing credits: Ashes on the Water (Neworld Theatre/Raven Spirit Dance). Short screenplays: Love, The Girl in the Green Beret and Mosquitoes; for which she won an award for her unique voice. Various Film and T.V: Fringe, Blackstone, Cable Beach, The Letter, Da Vinci’s City Hall, V, Unnatural and Accidental, and Da Vinci’s Inquest which she won a Leo Award for Best Female Guest Appearance. She is currently playwright-in-residence with Full Circle: First Nations Performance writing The Women of Papiyek, a project delving into the living history of Xway Xway (Stanley Park); co-creating a children’s show called Salmon Girl with Raven Spirit Dance, premiering at Presentation House in 2017, and also working in collaboration with ITSAZOO and Savage Society on The Pipeline Project, which premieres at The Gateway (Richmond) in 2017. Quelemia is a graduate of Studio 58. Currently she is writer in residence with Full Circle and an associate artist with Urban Ink Productions.

Megan Stewart

Block A

Megan creates small and large performances on Canada’s East and West Coasts. She is a performer, director and producer, and a graduate of SFU’s MFA program in Interdisciplinary Arts. She is the co-director and producer of The River Clyde Pageant, a large-scale outdoor theatre production created in collaboration with the community of New Glasgow, Prince Edward Island, occurring annually since 2016. In 2012, she co-founded The Island Fringe Festival in Charlottetown, PEI, the only fully site-specific Fringe in the world.

In Vancouver and elsewhere, she makes story-driven performances, installations, and unconventional costumes. In 2018, she adapted and performed three versions of Deborah Pearson’s solo performance The Future Show. She also performed in Decoy at the 2018 Chutzpah! Festival with the band Ten Thousand Wolves. meganblythe.com

Amy Lynn Strilchuk

Block A

Amy is a writer, dramaturg, and arts manager who’s worked for companies like ATP, the Arts Club, Ballet BC, the Electric Company, Gateway Theatre, and Green Thumb Theatre. As a dramaturg, she’s developed over a dozen new plays for world premiere across Western Canada. Amy is also the board Secretary of the Magnetic North Theatre Festival, a board member of Speak Easy Theatre, and an MA graduate from UBC. Her short musical, Transit UnRomantic, was performed in a chilly outdoor shack for ATP’s mid-winter playRites Festival, and her articles have been published in SpiderWebShow (“How to Get Over Your White Girl Guilt and Do Your Fucking Job“), Conglomerate Magazine, Calgary Fashion, and a number of lifestyle blogs.

Jovanni Sy

PTC Associates

Jovanni Sy is a playwright, director, performer and the artistic director of Gateway Theatre. As an actor, Jovanni has performed with companies from Whitehorse to St. John’s. His most recent Vancouver roles were in King of the Yees (Gateway), Dead Metaphor (Firehall), and A Taste of Empire (Boca del Lupo). Jovanni directed Closer Than Ever, Valley Song, and Harvest at Gateway. He also directed God of Carnage, Antigone, and Blackbird for Theatre du Pif in Hong Kong and Stitch for Native Earth in Toronto. Jovanni’s most recent play Nine Dragons premiered at Vertigo Theatre in Calgary in 2017 and subsequently transferred to Winnipeg’s Royal MTC and Gateway Theatre. Nine Dragons was nominated for a Betty Award and a Jessie Award for Outstanding New Play. Jovanni’s earlier play A Taste of Empire has been performed in Toronto and Vancouver in both English and Cantonese. Both these plays have been published by Talonbooks.

Kat Taddei

Block A

Kat Taddei is a gender-fluid playwright and performer and the founding Artistic Director of Vino Buono Productions, an indie theatre company based on unceded Lekwungen and W̱SÁNEĆ territory (Victoria, BC). Their work has been produced both locally and internationally, at events such as the Belfry Theatre’s SPARK Festival, Intrepid Theatre’s YOU Show and OUTstages Festivals, Theatre SKAM’s PopUp Live Series, and the Adelaide Fringe Festival. They are a two-time recipient of the Victoria Fringe’s “Favourite New Play” award for their writing. Kat is currently working on a new play entitled While You Sleep for the Belfry Theatre’s Incubator program, about the connection between night terrors and real-life death threats, as well as a self-produced TYA piece entitled Lunar Boys, about two queer teens who meet while debating the gender identity of their favourite anime character on Reddit. Connect with them via Twitter at @KatTaddei.

José Teodoro

WrightSpace (Colony)

José Teodoro is the author of several plays, including Mote, The Tourist and Slowly, an exchange is taking place. His play Steps will be published in Playwrights Canada Press’ anthology Long Story Short in November. José writes about cinema and literature for publications such as The Globe and Mail, Cinema Scope, Film Comment, The National Post and Brick. He is co-author, with Mexican photographer Laura Barrón, of Cathedral, a three-metre-long book of text and image. He has worked as story editor on several films, including Hugh Gibson’s The Stairs and Lina Rodríguez’s This Time Tomorrow.

José has served on juries at numerous film festivals throughout Europe and the Americas and is a writer-editor for the Toronto, Panama and Miami International Film Festivals. Aside from his new play, Island, which will be developed at the Colony, José is also working on Nothing But Time, a book of conversations with filmmaker Peter Mettler.

Deneh’Cho Thompson

Fringe New Play Prize

2016 Fringe New Play Prize winner for The Girl Who was Raised by Wolverine, Deneh is an emerging director, actor and playwright based in Vancouver. In 2009 he co-founded workingclasstheatre, an indie theatre company dedicated to producing new works, providing training opportunities and showcasing the work of emerging artists.

Since 2009, Deneh has been developing an artistic practice that uses devised theatre as its principal component, often blurring the lines that define the roles of director, actor and writer. Recent directing credits include The Dudes of My Life, a devised piece, and The Governor of the Dew, by Floyd Favel. Deneh trained at Capilano University and, more recently, Simon Fraser University. In 2015 Deneh joined both the Full Circle First Nations Performance Ensemble and the Urban Ink Collective. Deneh recently performed as a guest artist in The Classroom at Studio 58, and is preparing to travel to Spain for Tant per Tant’s production of Marie Clements’ Burning Vision in Barcelona’s Grec Festival in July. Deneh is also Producer at The Greater Vancouver Professional Theatre Alliance, and Associate Producer at Full Circle First Nations Performance and the Talking Stick Festival.

Tessa Trach

Block A

Tessa Trach has been studying, training and performing for more than 20 years and has worked professionally as an actor, singer, choreographer and sound designer. She is interested writing about topics that are usually pushed under the rug. Recent credits include: Kathy in Singin’ in the Rain (Royal City Musical Theatre); A Christmas Carol in Banff (Carter-Ryan Productions); Marty in Grease (Chemainus Theatre Festival) and performing in From Broadway with Love (Circle Bright). Tessa has a Diploma in Music from Capilano University, a Bachelor of Performing Arts and is a graduate of Studio 58. Follow on Instagram @tessatrach or #veganfortessa

Tricia Trinh

Block A

Tricia Trinh is a multidisciplinary theatre artist, based in Vancouver B.C. Since graduating from University of Victoria’s Phoenix Theatre Department Tricia has had the pleasure of working with theatre companies such as Blue Bridge Repertory Theatre, Puente Theatre, Impulse Theatre and Tomo Suru Players. One of Tricia’s acting highlights includes working with Daniel MacIvor on the world premiere of, Inside [UVic.] Tricia premiered her first One Act, What Defines Us on the Arts Club stage in 2007 [LEAP Playwriting Program]. November of 2010 Tricia wrote & directed her second play, The Ethical Six-some [UVic SATCo.]. November of 2012, The Ethical Six-some went on to have its international premiere at South Oregon University. June of 2017 Tricia won Best Director for her work in Tomo Suru’s About Love Festival. Tricia’s next venture involves directing her latest play Probability at the rEvolver Festival in May of 2018. Instagram: @dustyfootproductions

Sara Vickruck

Fringe New Play Prize

Sara Vickruck is a queer theatre artist and musician. She has recently performed in This Here with Babelle Theatre, Fun Home at the Arts Club, NeOn at rEvolver Festival, Kill Your Lovers at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre’s Rhubarb Festival, and Circle Game at the Firehall Arts Centre. Sara co-founded the all-female theatre company, Poiema Productions, with whom she created, produced, and toured three plays. Sara also self-produced her album Prologue, available on iTunes, Spotify and saravickruck.ca. She’s the winner of an Ovation Award for Best Female Performer (Love Bomb, Shameless Hussy Productions), and the E.V. Young Award for her portrayal of Anybodys in West Side Story (Theatre Under the Stars). Sara’s a Grant MacEwan Graduate.

Yvonne Wallace

WrightSpace (Colony)

Yvonne Wallace is Ucwalmicw from the Lil’wat Nation. She is a Liberal Arts graduate from Capilano University. Her enthusiasm for playwriting began while she worked at The Centre for Indigenous Theatre in Toronto. Later, she graduated with honours from the Theatre Acting program at Humber College. She has written three plays Smothered Sweetly, The Last Dance and utszan –her third and most personal body of work, in which she has translated one character’s text into her first language ucwalmicwts. The play received an outstanding merit from Capilano University for the performance presentation. The university invited Yvonne to remount the show during Truth and Reconciliation week in September 2018 in the BlueShore Financial Centre for the Performing Arts. She is delighted to be working with both Playwrights Theatre Centre and Native Earth Performing Arts and appreciates their support to help bring the story to the next draft.

Savannah Walling

Collaborations

Savannah Walling, born in Oklahoma, USA, is a first generation immigrant to Canada and twelfth generation descendent of refugees from Europe; her tangled bloodlines travel further than she has concrete knowledge. A writer/theatre artist trained in dance, mime and music, Savannah is co-founder /artistic director of Vancouver Moving Theatre, with whom she has toured four continents; created a series of community-engaged productions for/with/and about Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside; and served as associate artistic director of the Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival. She collaborates with artists of many genres, traditions and cultures to create productions that interweave localized content with accessible storytelling, spectacle and live music. She co-wrote Storyweaving with Rosemary Georgeson and Renae Morriseau.

Rebecca Walters

Block P

Born in Vancouver BC, Rebecca has her BFA from UBC and her MFA from The Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Academy for Classical Acting at The George Washington University. She has made theatre throughout the Lower Mainland and Washington DC. A core member of Ensemble Theatre Company, Rebecca has appeared in several of their shows, including The Farnsworth Invention, Dark Road and A Prayer for Owen Meany. Rebecca has recently added Associate Artistic Director to her list of credits, joining Peninsula Productions to help guide their 2019 season. She will be directing and co-producing Our Town, Peninsula’s inaugural production in their new black box theatre space.

Veronique West

PTC Associates

Veronique is a playwright, dramaturg and educator of Polish descent, based on unceded Coast Salish territories (also known as Vancouver). Her work is informed by her lived experience of mental health issues, as well as her interest in the intersections of mental health, politics and identity. She is an Associate at Playwrights Theatre Centre, the Resident Emerging Artist at Boca del Lupo, the Devised Writing Teacher at Green Room Theatre and the LEAP Assistant at the Arts Club. Previously, she has been the Literary Assistant at the Arts Club and a Playwriting Instructor at Gateway Theatre. Her plays include: Intrusion (winner of Tarragon Theatre’s 20/20 Playwriting Competition), Marrow (Resounding Scream Theatre/Alley Theatre) and Where the Devil Can’t Go (in development with PTC). As a dramaturg, she has worked for the Arts Club, Playwrights Theatre Centre, Neworld Theatre, South Asian Arts Society, Alley Theatre, Resounding Scream Theatre, rEvolver festival and festiVALT. She is a member of the Playwrights Guild of Canada and the Literary Managers & Dramaturgs of the Americas. In addition to her artistic practice, she provides peer support to people recovering from eating disorders through the Looking Glass Foundation’s Hand in Hand program.

Anais West

Fringe New Play Prize

Anais West is a queer actor, playwright and theatre producer. She is the current Associate Artistic Producer at Pi Theatre and a co-producer for the Virago Play Series, an initiative that develops and produces new work by female, femme and trans playwrights. Her play, Kill Your Lovers, was presented at Buddies In Bad Times Theatre’s Rhubarb Festival in Toronto and the Fresh Fruit Festival in New York City. As an actor, Anais has worked with Rumble Theatre’s Tremors Festival, Carousel Theatre for Young People, PuSh Festival and the Arts Club. Most recently, she appeared in the Only Animal’s production of SLIME. Anais is a graduate of Studio 58.

Gerald Williams

Block A

Gerald has spent the majority of his life in Asia performing and teaching and has recently returned to his native Canada. He’s excited by stories that deceive, are layered with complex relationships and surprise.

Adrienne Wong

PTC Associates

Adrienne Wong asks audiences to “re-see” the familiar and reimagine the everyday. Works include a series of site-specific audio plays (PodPlays, developed with Martin Kinch), a participatory show for kids about city planning (Me On The Map, created with Jan Derbyshire), an SMS show performed simultaneously in two cities (Landline, created with Dustin Harvey), and an analogue version of Facebook (Placebook, created with Mirae Rosner and Marcus Youssef ). Adrienne is a Associate Artist at both Neworld Theatre and SpiderWebShow.ca. She has two kids and no plants.

Sangeeta Wylie

Block A

Sangeeta is an actor, writer (and sometime director/producer), in film, television and theatre. Sangeeta has worked with director Deepa Mehta (Beeba Boys), and has appeared on stage in Refuge at the Firehall. Sangeeta has been writing her first full-length play called The Boat People, with help from the PTC and VACT. When she is not working as an artist, Sangeeta acts on the board for The Cultch, plays classical piano, and practices dentistry at a not-for-profit clinic in Vancouver.

Krys Yuan

Block A

Krys Yuan is a young Singaporean theatre-maker and anthropology student at UBC. Having graduated from the theatre program at School of the Arts, Singapore, she dances between disciplines and continues her theatre practice outside of school as an actor, creator and writer. She finds herself perpetually in the in-between, drawn to the stories and people that live there. When she isn’t busy with words or philosophy, she enjoys chasing after cats and watching sunsets.

Ilana Zackon

Block P

Ilana Zackon is a Canadian artist who enjoys wearing many hats. An actor, singer, voice-over artist, writer, producer and director, she has been involved in the performing arts since the age of three. Selected theatre credits include So, How Should I Be? (Presentation House Theatre), a Canada-wide tour of the TYA musicalThe Magical Journey (Tohu Bohu Productions), Nuclear Sky (Title 66 Productions, Montreal) and Under Milk Wood (Edinburgh Fringe). She recently directed two plays at Speakeasy Theatre‘s Pull Festivalas well as two productions for her social issue theatre company Project X Performance, Part I and in / cognitō.Ilana is passionate about using theatre as a platform to create awareness and empathy, worldwide. She is currently an Artist-in-Residence at Presentation House Theatre

Maria Zarrillo

Block P

Maria Zarrillo is a graduate of Studio 58’s production program and works primarily as an Equity stage manager based in Vancouver. Since graduating, she has worked on a variety of shows such as Empire of the Son (Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre), The Invisible Hand (Pi Theatre), L’Elisir D’Amore (Vancouver Opera) and Broken Tailbone (Nightswimming Theatre). Maria is currently the operations assistant for Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre as well as a producer on 食盡天下 (A Taste of Empire) with rice & beans theatre. She feels very fortunate to be working frequently in the arts and hopes to one day become the general manager of a local theatre company.

Playwrights:

Kamee Abrahamian

Barbara Adler

Carmen Aguirre

Peter Anderson

Megan Andres

Diana Bang

Brandon Barrett

Mariam Barry

Henry Beasley

lee williams boudakian

Leanna Brodie

Lesli Brownlee

Moses Clyde Caliboso

Tim Carlson

Bronwyn Carradine

Tania Carter

Wendy Chan

Gavan Cheema

Jasmine Chehil

Rohit Chokhani

Joseph A. Dandurand

Jan Derbyshire

Sunny Drake

Andrew Duffy

Kendra Fanconi

Kris Fleerackers

Caitlin Fysh

David Geary

Rosemary Georgeson

Rachael Goddard-Rebstein

Kagan Goh

Becky Gold

Tai Amy Grauman

Zaffi Green

Robert Garry Haacke

Robert Hamilton

Kanon Hewitt

Janet Hinton

Jessica Hood

Matt Horrigan

Christina Jastrzembska

Arvind Johal

Arno Kamolika

Hiro Kanagawa

Ayush Kathuria

Jesse Kaur Lehail

Peg Keenleyside

Ian Kent

Sidney Klips

Frances Koncan

Taran Kootenhayo

Jessica Leung

Milton Lim

Britt MacLeod

Michelle Martin

Ariel Martz-Oberlander

Jennifer McKay-Martin

Niall McNeil

Liam Monaghan

Renae Morriseau

Adele Noronha

Falcon oHara

Debbie Patterson

Linda Quibell

Zahida Rahemtulla

Anoushka Ratnarajah

Lili Robinson

Lenore Rowntree

Jotika

Mannu Sandhu

Jessica Schacht

Rebecca Schneidereit

Taylor Scott

Kamila Sediego

Munish Sharma

Tetsuro Shigematsu

Bahareh Shigematsu

Gurpreet Sian