That’s What They Said!

A graduate of the National Theatre School of Canada’s writing program, Martin Bellemare was awarded the 2009 Gratien Gélinas Prize for “Le Chant de Georges Boivin.” His play “La Liberté” was presented at La Rubrique (Jonquière) in 2013 and in Montreal in 2015, and was scheduled to be staged in Ottawa in 2020.

“Maître Karim la perdrix” (2018 Prix SACD de la dramaturgie francophone, awarded by the Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques) will premiere at the Théâtre des Capucins in Luxembourg in 2021. “Moule Robert” (CNL Scholarship, shortlisted for the 2017 Prix SACD de la dramaturgie francophone and the 2018 Michel Tremblay Prize) was produced simultaneously at La Rubrique and at the POCHE/ GVE in Geneva, then at the Théâtre de Belleville in Paris.

Martin is a four-time recipient of the Aide à la création grant from the Centre national du Théâtre/ARTCENA in Paris, and two of his plays are included in the repertoire of the Comédie-Française. Two of his plays for young audiences, “Un château sur le dos” and “Des pieds et des mains,” which was first produced at the NAC, have toured in Canada and internationally.

In 2019, “Extraordinaire et mystérieux” and “Charlie et le djingpouite” were produced, and Cœur minéral premiered at the Francophonies in Limoges. The latter play was scheduled for a Montreal production in 2020. Martin was one of the five playwrights nominated for Canada’s leading theatre award, the 2020 Siminovitch Prize.

Jay is seemingly everywhere. His TV work includes Supernatural, Cold Squad, Stargate SGI, Bate Motel, Rogue, West Wing, The X-Files, 5 Star Xmas, Garage Sale Mysteries, The Exorcist, Cedar Cove, and The Killing. Films include Noelle, Double Jeopardy, Watchmen, Insomnia, Best in Show, Cool Runnings, We’re No Angels, The Possession, Andre, Head Over Heels, Sex After Kids, Gunless, Fathers and Sons, and, most recently, Attic Trunk. Countless voice roles from Sabrina: The Animated Series to My Little Pony, plus voicing the NFB Oscar-nominated The Big Snit and Playtime.

Favourite theatre roles include Man in the Chair – The Drowsy Chaperone (N. A. C., Vancouver Playhouse), Tevye – Fiddler on the Roof (California The Rubicon Theatre,MTC), The Goat (Presentation House Theatre), Urinetown (Firehall Theatre), Boy Wonder – Diddy The Musical (Citadel Theatre, NAC), Tartuffe (M.T.C.), Cyrano (Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers Shakespeare Festival), The Wiz in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s North American Tour of Wizard of Oz, and the wonderful Edna Turnblad in the Canadian premiere of Hairspray.

Glenn trained in all aspects of the theatre at the Manitoba Theatre Centre in Winnipeg during the magnificent tenure of the legendary John Hirsch. He has worked as an actor, Stage Manager, Production Manager and Designer for theatres across Canada and in the US including The Vancouver Playhouse, Arts Club Theatre, Stratford Festival, Charlottetown Festival and Studio Arena Theatre (Buffalo, NY). In Vancouver, he produced You’re A Good Man Charlie Brown at Metro Theatre, and co-produced T-Shirts at City Stage and Torch Song Trilogy at the Cultch. In addition he worked in Production Management for Expo ’86 Entertainment Department where he managed a $12M budget. He Stage Managed the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the Calgary Winter Olympics and was Operations Director for BC’s MUSIC ’91 province wide music festival. He also works in television and film in set decoration and has over 100 projects to his credit. He is the President of the PAL Studio Theatre Society and sits on the Board of Trustees of PAL Vancouver. Glenn has designed over 200 stage productions including 20 in the last seven years at the PAL Studio Theatre. He is the recipient of the 2016 Jesse Richardson Award for Outstanding Set Design for the production of Annapurna. He has managed Western Gold Theatre since 2012.

Hannah is a filmmaker, writer, and actor from Vancouver. Most recently, she wrote and directed the short film Breathing Easy over Zoom, featuring Arts Club regulars Agnes Tong and Anita Wittenberg. She also directed, produced, and co-edited a music video for singer-songwriter David Beckingham in collaboration with Ballet BC, Plastic Wings. Additionally, Hannah co-produced a participatory documentary mini-series about homelessness shot on iPhone, Home Stream, which was distributed by NowThis and Little Dot Studios. She holds a degree in International Development from McGill, an MA in Acting from East 15, and a postgrad filmmaking diploma from the London Film Academy. www.hannahsiden.com

Jack is an award-winning theatre maker whose work and practice has taken him across Canada, Europe and around the world. His work has ranged from contemporary devising, multi-disciplinary, cross-cultural and multi-lingual projects to new works and texts, contemporary approaches to classical theatre and main stages. He is a recipient of The Ray Michal Outstanding Body of Work Award, The Cole Foundation Award for Emerging Translators, and The John Moffat and Larry Lillo Award for Outstanding West Coast Artist.

In Vancouver, he is the founder of multi-award-winning Mad Duck Theatre Collective for whom he adapted and directed Vancouver’s first female Prospero in The Tempest and the Vancouver premieres of Titus Andronicus, Coriolanus and Shakespeare’s R&J. He is the Co-founder and Creative Producer of BoucheWHACKED! Theatre Collective bridging local, national, and international artists and audience separated by distance, language, and culture (Vancouver). He’s also the co-founder and creative producer of Global Hive Labs., an international network of theatre makers working together in shared creation.

19/20 pre-pandemic projects included: the international access devised creation projects Medusa USA (Steppenwolf Theatre, USA) and Medusa UK (The Pleasance Theatre & remounted at The Cockpit Theatre, London UK); a fusion of traditional Balinese performing arts and contemporary devised creation, Balinese Folk Tales (SENI, Indonesia); the community devised creation lab. Enemy of the People: After Ibsen (Jericho Arts Centre, Vancouver); the Active Access international devised creation Atlantide (Teatro Trieste 34, Piacenza Italy); and 4 months embedded with German innovation incubator flausen+ (theatre wrede+ & flausen+ Network, Germany).

He trained at leading Circle in the Square (NYC, USA), GITIS The University of Performing Arts (Moscow, RU), SENI Indonesian Institute of the Arts (Bali, INA) and received his MFA from the renown East 15 Acting School (London, UK). www.jackpatersontheatre.com

Johanna Nutter (she, euro-settler, multidisciplinary artist) developed her passion for translation through acting: being one of few perfectly bilingual theatre artists, she played leading roles at Centaur (Good People, You Will Remember Me) and La Licorne (Les Événements). The attention of both circles came thanks to the success of her solo my pregnant brother/mon frère est enceinte, which she translated during a residency in Tadoussac, accompanied by Linda Gaboriau. The show toured across Canada and Quebec in both languages, and to the UK and Belgium. Subsequently, she translated the works of Annick Lefebvre (Barbed Wire), Guillaume Corbeil (You’ll Go Looking for Her), and Florence Longpré & Nicolas Michon’s ballet-theatre hybrid CHLORINE, which she also produced and directed at Centaur, with her company creature/creature.

She has a life-long interest in theatre as student and performer in the distant past, producer for a couple of shows, and enthusiastic audience member. She also has family connections to the theatre through her husband Stephen (actor) and daughter Rachel (actor, playwright, associate artistic director at Green Thumb).

Paul Beckett has been out of the theatre scene due, in large part, to the pandemic. But over this time, Paul has been finding his way with writing. Please keep your eyes peeled and your ears open for he and his partner’s one-act play, The Village Girl and the Frog King, which will be airing in a radio production on Vancouver Co-operative Radio, CFRO. The play, which probably brought Paul his greatest attention, was a one-man show about the late 19th century Parisian artist Henri de Toulouse Lautrec. That had to be about thirty years ago. Currently, Paul is working under CAEA contract to workshop the translation of Quebec writer Martin Bellemare’s piece, Western Gold: The Ballad of Georges Boivin, about four men, seniors, driving from Montreal to Vancouver in search of a long-lost love.

Allan Morgan has been a professional actor for more than 30 years, with his home in Vancouver. He is currently one of the artists in residence at the Massey theatre in New Westminster. Allan’s acting work has taken him across the country, and he has been the recipient of numerous awards for his work. He has also written two one-person shows: Pride for the Young Gay, the Un-Gay and the Jaded Queen in All of Us, as well as, I Walked the Line.

Salim Rahemtulla was born in Kampala and moved to Canada in 1974, after graduation in Computer Science from the University of Manchester, England. Retired in 2019 and with encouragement from his children, he has found the time to pursue his passion for creative writing. His first foray into theatre was playing “Whale” in Jonah and the Whale at the Aga Khan School Kampala in the late 1960s. He has just finished the script of his first play, 90 Days, which is about the traumatic 90-day period in which all non-indigenous countrymen of Uganda were expelled by dictator Idi Amin. It draws on Salim’s memories of growing up in Uganda in a modest family of nine siblings who became separated after the expulsion. He is also currently writing short stories that he hopes to publish soon. He lives in Vancouver with his wife and four children.

Currently, Michele works as the Manager of Realwheels’ Acting Academy, leading the design and development of a professional acting program completely devoted to people with disabilities. Since 1998, he has worked in national and international artistic productions as creator and producer in a few countries around the world. In 2007, he won the “Prova d’Attore” Italian National Contest for theatre actors. Michele holds a PhD, an MSc, and has received professional training in theatre and education. He is a first-generation immigrant and part of a multicultural family.

She is the founding Artistic Director of the Aboriginal Arts Training and Mentorship program as well as Urban Indigenous Theatre Company, a multi-generational troupe creating positive, multi-disciplinary expressions of cultural self-determination

Jamie Thomson (Haida Nation) Dennis Joseph (Squamish Nation) have joined forces to form The Hitchhikers. Performing original music inspired by the blues, their lives, and their culture, Jamie leads the way on guitar with Dennis adding melodic highlights on harmonica. The duo has years of performance experience in bands like Bitterly Divine, White Feather, & Intellifunk. They debuted The Hitchhikers for the summer 2019 festival circuit.

In 2018, Howard joined Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity as Vice President Arts and Leadership where he is responsible for Arts, Leadership and Presenting Programs

Prior to Banff, Howard was Professor of Professional Practice in the School for the Contemporary Arts at SFU and was the Director of the Woodward’s Cultural Unit. There, he developed a Creative Entrepreneurship Program in the School for the Contemporary Arts and was responsible for the public Cultural and Community Programs at the Goldcorp Centre for the Arts.

Howard has been a member of several volunteer boards and committees, most notably for the Canadian Arts Summit, Orchestras Canada, Manitoba Arts Stabilization, the Canada Council, BC Arts Council Music, City of Vancouver, Vancouver Alliance for Arts and Culture, Greater Vancouver Professional Theatre Alliance, and the Vancouver Foundation’s Arts and Cultural Advisory Committee.

Howard is a member of the Board for the Dancer Transition Resource Centre and Chair of the Advisory Board for the Vancouver Chinatown Storytelling Centre.

Trained as a musician, Howard has served as the Executive Director for the Arts Club Theatre Company in Vancouver (2000-2014), Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra (1997-2000), and Ballet British Columbia (1993-1997) following work as Orchestra Manager in Vancouver and NYC.

Marilyn is a professional actor who has lived in the Vancouver area for 30 years. Favourite stage roles include Heidi Holland in The Heidi Chronicles (Vancouver Playhouse), Hagar Shipley in The Stone Angel (Firehall Theatre), Eleanor of Aquitaine in The Lion in Winter (United Players). On screen she has worked with directors Steven Spielberg (The BFG), Gillian Armstrong (Little Women), Brian De Palma (Mission to Mars), and with actors Johnny Depp, Sam Shepherd, Leonardo di Caprio and the many, many great actors who live and work right here. She is also the creator and producer of My Mother’s Story, a multimedia campaign encouraging people to write the story of their mothers’ lives so women’s history is valued, saved, and shared. www.mymothersstory.org

Donnie MacDonald is a designated Chartered Professional Accountant and a Fellow of the Chartered Professional Accountants of Canada (FCA, FCMA). She was the Vice-President of Finance with Westminster Savings Credit Union until retiring in July 2015. Currently she is a member of the AGLG Audit Council. Active in the community, she is currently Chair of the North Shore Crisis Services Society and is as a board member and Chair of Western Gold Theatre. In addition to her community work Donnie also enjoys travelling and hiking which has taken her to many interesting parts of the world. When at home she can be found enjoying live theatre (has been a loyal fan for over 30 years) and having fun with her friends and fellow book club and hiking group enthusiasts.

Diana has been a working singer and director in many years. She’s performed with United Players, Vagabond Players, The Metro, Dragon Diva Opera Company, Applause ! Musicals, North Shore Light Opera , The Shakespeare Center, PALS Chorus, and TUTS, as well as in numerous coffee houses and other dives. Back in the dawn of time, she worked with cuneiform and abacus as a computer programmer. Her proudest achievement was to usher two splendid young women into the world without messing it up too badly. She is very fond of dogs, cats, frogs, reading, swimming, single malt whisky, and travel, and persists against all odds in the attempt to learn French.
Diana firmly believes that the arts in general, and theatre in particular, are essential to humanity, noting that our most ancient ancestors, scraping a precarious existing from a harsh world, still made time for art – cave paintings, music, storytelling. They could not do otherwise. Without art, we have no hope of reaching out of our individual isolation to form community, and humans cannot survive long without community.

Louise has enjoyed a 38 year career in the Finance Department of a local Credit Union, retiring as the Vice President, Finance.
Volunteering has been a big part of Louise’s life, spending numerous hours volunteering with her children’s various sports teams and schools, church and a domestic abuse services organization. Served six years as a Board of Director for The North Shore Crisis Services Society, including holding the office of Treasurer.
Louise enjoys theatre from a seat in the audience and is thrilled to be on the Board of Western Gold Theatre and appreciates the love and dedication of all those attached to theatre.

Bonnie is a retired executive from the Federal Public Service who is currently active on several Community Not For Profit Boards, including: the West End Community Centre; The Opera Club; and Western Gold Theatre (WGT). She participates as the Community Representative on three Medical Research Ethics Boards: Providence Health Care; Coastal Health; and Fraser Health.

She assists WGT with Volunteer Co-ordination and Donor Participation/p>

Stephanie was the Artist Liaison at the Arts Club Theatre Company for 25 years and facilitated the casting of hundreds of artists since 1998. Previous positions at the Arts Club include Campaign Administrator for the restoration and re-opening of the Stanley Theatre, and Tour Coordinator for the Arts Club Theatre for whom she sent out over 30 shows to 25 venues across BC and Ontario. Stephanie was also the Festival Manager for CIAO! (Children’s International Arts Organization), an international children’s theatre festival, in Bracknell and Oxford, Southwest England from 2004 – 2010. An active community member and volunteer, Stephanie has served on the Boards of the Greater Vancouver Professional Theatre Alliance, Jesssie Richardson Theatre Awards Society, British Columbia Touring Council, Rumble Productions and the Rachel Davis Foundation. Stephanie is a graduate of the University of British Columbia with a Master of Arts in English Literature. Stephanie is frequently asked to adjudicate auditions and to give workshops on audition techniques.

Ellie O’Day has worked in music, performing arts and cultural industries for nearly 40 years. She was one of North America’s first female DJs in the 70s, a columnist for the Georgia Straight in the 80s, and Executive Director of Pacific Music Industry Assn in the 90s. For 17 years, her O’Day Productions provided media relations to The Cultch, festivals (PuSh Festival, Children’s Festival, VIFF, VIBC, Sonic Boom, KickstArt, Sound of Dragon), theatre companies, special events, CD launches and more. She has served on numerous boards, including twice as a Director of PAL Vancouver.