Touchstone Theatre

Production Manager and Lighting Designer, True Love Lies

Adrian is a Vancouver based lighting designer who’s previous credits for Touchstone include Demon Voice, Herr Beckman’s People, The Dissemblers, Unity 1918 and Grace (selected). Other local and national credits include work for Bard on the Beach, The Electric Company, Vancouver Opera, Ballet BC, The Vancouver Playhouse, Pacific Opera Victoria, Theatre Calgary, Citadel Theatre (Edmonton), Canadian Stage Company (Toronto), and the Charlottetown Festival among many others. Adrian has been the recipient of four Jessie Richardson awards for his work as a lighting designer and is a member of the Associated Designers of Canada.

Julia, Goodness

Amy Rutherford is a graduate of The National Theatre School of Canada and studied at the Stratford Festival of Canada’s Conservatory Programme. She most recently performed in The Odd Couple and As You Like It for Toronto’s Soulpepper Theatre Company. Other theatre roles include: Viola (Twelfth Night), Nina (The Seagull), Elvira (Blithe Spirit), Jenny (The Shape of Things), and Alison in Daniel MacIvor’s You Are Here. She was nominated for a Dora Mavor Moore Award in 2004 for her work in the musical Tequila Vampire Matinee. TV roles include: Murdoch Mysteries (Bravo), Angela’s Eyes (NBC/Lifetime), Naked Josh (Showcase), Four Minutes (ESPN), Confessions of an American Bride (Lifetime). Amy is currently developing her own television series with creative partner Amy Stewart called The Amy and Amy Show.

David, True Love Lies

Currently Andrew is teaching at VFS, Leap Studios and Studio 3. He is Preparing to direct two Canadian premieres of Michele Riml's new plays- On The Edge and Into The Wild. He is honored to be in this production of True Love Lies directed by the brilliant Ms. Dunn and surrounded by an amazing cast.

Royce, True Love Lies

Anton Lipovetsky is from Vancouver, BC. He is the creator of FLOP!, a one-man musical he performed at the 2011 Edmonton Fringe, and a co-writer of The Park (Studio 58), which received two productions last year and an Ovation Award for Outstanding New Work. Favourite acting credits include: Charrington in 1984 (Virtual Stage/Studio 58), Antipholus of Syracuse in Comedy Of Errors (Studio 58) and Mark Cohen in Rent (Fighting Chance). Delighted to make his professional debut, he wishes to thank Katrina and Touchstone Theatre for the fantastic opportunities they’ve granted him this year. Anton is a graduate of Studio 58.

Playwright, Almighty Voice and His Wife

Daniel is a Delaware from the Six Nations lands on the Grand River. He holds an Honours B.A. in General Fine Arts from York U and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from U.B.C and teaches playwrighting in the Department of Drama at Queen’s University in Kingston. His plays include Coyote City, a nominee for the 1991 Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama, The Indian Medicine Shows, a winner of the James Buller Memorial Award for Excellence in Aboriginal Theatre and The Dreaming Beauty, First Prize Winner in the One Act Category of the 1990 Theatre Canada National Playwrighting Competition. He is also the author of Delicate Bodies and Sixteen Jesuses, poems, and co-editor of the Oxford University Press book. An Anthology of Canadian Native Literature in English, 3rd Edition, 2005. His most recent publications are Pursued by a Bear, Talks, Monologues and Tales (2005) and Kyotopolis (2008), both from Exile Editions. A new edition of Almighty Voice and His Wife will appear from Playwrights Canada Press in August.
 

Lighting Design & Production Manager, Almight Voice and his Wife

David is a designer, technician, manager various, and one of the Co-Artistic Directors of Theatre Jones Roy. Last season, David created lighting designs for Macbeth Reflected (Theatre Jones Roy), Future Folk (Sulong Collective/Theatre Passe Muraille), Letters to my Grandma (Theatre Jones Roy/Theatre Passe Muraille), and was the tour manager and designer for Theatre Jones Roy’s tours of Pyaasa and Letters to my Grandma to Victoria, Ottawa, London and Vancouver. He was also Production Coordinator for Canadian Stage’s Festival of Ideas and Creation. David is Coordinator of the Theatre Passe Muraille Backspace.
 

Almighty Voice and his wife

Derek is currently living in Chicago and is the Co-founder and Artistic Director of Mortar Theatre Company. He has worked both internationally and regionally. Derek was most recently seen in Mortar Theatre’s Inaugural production of Inherit the Whole in the role of Doug, which was a World Premiere play written by Dana Lynn Formby. Derek has worked regionally with Pennsylvania Centre Stage, Next Stage, Southern Colorado Repertory Theatre, and Montana Shakespeare Company. He graduated with his MFA in Acting from Penn State University and graduated with his undergraduate degree from Adams State College. He is originally from Denver, CO, but mostly grew up on the Reservation in Southern Oklahoma and is an enrolled Tribal Member of the Wichita Nation.
 

Set and Costume Designer, True Love Lies

Drew is a three time Jessie Award winning designer and seven time nominee. Recently Drew designed the sets and costumes for Hansel & Gretel (Vancouver Opera in Schools), and the sets for Steel Magnolias (Chemainus), 1984 (Virtual Stage), Much Ado About Nothing and Antony & Cleopatra (Bard on the Beach), Brighton Beach Memoirs and Annie (Gateway). Since graduating from Studio 58 four years ago, he’s designed over 60 shows. He also trained as a visual artist at the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, Concordia University and apprenticed privately in Montreal as a glass sculptor.

Kane, True Love Lies

Greg is excited to be working at Touchstone again after last year’s successful run of Mimi at the Shadbolt & the Firehall. Favourite roles:Hunter, [title of show] (Jessie nomination for Best Ensemble, HomeShark Equity Co-op); Hedwig, Hedwig & the Angry Inch (Hoarse Raven); Malcolm, The Full Monty (Patrick Street & Persephone); Bilbo (cover), Lord of the Rings (Mirvish); Mr Mayor, Seussical (Carousel); Lita Encore, Ruthless! (Ophidian); Sparky, Plaid Tidings (The Centre/Stuart Ross); Le Beau, As You Like It (Bard on the Beach).Greg is still gob-smacked that he will be playing Albin in La Cage aux Folles at the Vancouver Playhouse this December.

Set & Costume Design, Almighty Voice and His Wife

Jackie Chau has worked as a set and costume designer in Montreal, Chicago and Toronto, and her work has toured internationally. She has taught set and costume design in the US, and studied theatre design at Concordia (Montreal) and Northwestern (Chicago). Selected Toronto design credits include: Sexy Laundry (Theatre Aquarius), Annie Mae’s Movement, The Place Between, Salt Baby, Giiwedin (NEPA), Antigone Insurgency, Someone Is Going To Come, Talking Masks (One Little Goat), The Taxi Project (PEN Canada), Gas Girls (New Harlem Productions), The Making Of St. Jerome (eastBOUND Theatre), Pu-Erh (Know Theatre), Romeo and Juliet (TD Dream in High Park/Can Stage). Film and TV: Inside (Rabid Pictures), The Ache (Feature-Wondrous Light), CBC Kids-Get Set For Life Tour (CBC Television), The Feud (Pilot-Frantic Films/CBC). Jackie was named in NOW magazine's Top 10 Theatre Artists of 2009 and has received 3 Dora nominations for outstanding set design.

Stephen, Goodness

Mr. Nicholsen’s theatre credits include: Drayton Entertainment (The Ballad of Stompin' Tom, Country Legends); Tarragon Theatre (Moliere); Festival of Classics (A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Goodnight Desdemona, Good Morning Juliet). Film and TV include: The Shape of Rex; Blizzard; Roughing It; Murdoch Mysteries; Flashpoint; Against The Wall; Falling Skies. 

Carolyn, True Love Lies

Katharine is delighted to be back at Touchstone. Most recently, Katharine was seen as Rivkeh in Pacific Theater’s Canadian premiere production of My Name is Asher Lev and will be playing Cunningham in The Last Days of Judas Iscariot at the Cultch later this season. Some favorite past roles include: At Pacific Theatre - Folly in Holy Mo, the title roles in St. Joan (Jessie nomination for Best Actress) and Agnes of God, Joy in  Shadowlands (Jessie nomination), Lindsay in Sister Calling My Name. At Touchstone - Donna in How It Works, Sara in Demon Voice; At Pound of Flesh Theatre - Cunningham in the reading of The Last Days of Judas Iscariot; At Chemainus Theatre - Milli in Queen Milli of Galt; At Theatre Calgary - Nellie in Summer and Smoke, Belle in A Christmas Carol, Katerina in Amadeus; At Theatre Junction - Prudence in Beyond Therapy, Helena in Look Back in Anger; Katharine started her professional career at the Citadel Theatre in Robin Phillips’ young company in the productions of The Crucible and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Katharine holds a B.F.A. from the University of Calgary and M.A. from the University of British Columbia.

Director, True Love Lies

Katrina Dunn is a Vancouver-based Director, Artistic Director and Producer. She has been the Artistic Director of Touchstone Theatre since 1997, overseeing that company's all-Canadian mandate, and working with many of Canadian Theatre’s most important players. In 2003 she co-founded, with Norman Armour, the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival; an annual city-wide performance festival which has quickly become one of the city’s most important cultural events. Her many freelance directing credits include work for the Arts Club Theatre Company, Bard on the Beach, and Studio 58. She has been nominated six times for Jessie Awards in Outstanding Direction, and won twice – once for her work on Michael Healey's Kicked, and once for her co-direction of Judith Thompson’s Palace of the End.

Madison, True Love Lies

A Studio 58 grad, Lara's thrilled to return to Touchstone where she last played 'Star' in Hippies and Bolsheviks (Jessie nomination). Select theatre credits: 'Beth'- A Lie of the Mind (Main Street Theatre, Jessie nomination), 'Flora'- Studies in Motion (Electric Company), 'Rosalind'- As You Like It (Bard on the Beach), 'Lady Caroline'- Enchanted April (Arts Club), 'Anna'- The Wedding Pool (SKAM, Jessie nomination). Select screen credits: recurring and guest starring roles on Battlestar Galactica, Defying Gravity, Exes and Oh's, Supernatural, Sanctuary. Upcoming, Lara will be seen at the Vancouver International Film Festival in Motion 58's short, Wait for Rain, and as 'Ophelia' in Bruce Ramsay's feature adaptation of Hamlet.

Mathias Todd, Goodness

Layne Coleman spent last year teaching acting at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon. He has been in living in Saskatoon co-writing, co-directing, and co-producing a feature film entitled, The Shape of Rex, which is now in post-production. 
 

Older Althea, Goodness

Ms Franck’s theatre credits include Necessary Angel/Luminato (Tout Comme Elle); Seventh Stage Theatre (9 Parts of Desire), Factory Theatre (El Paso; Consecrated Ground); Harbourfront Centre Theatre (The Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God); Leah Polsuns Theatre (Sweet Mama Stringbean); Bluma Appel Theatre (A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum), and Swan Song of Maria. Film and TV include: Spenser For Hire; Blue Murder; Cagney and Lacey; Short Circuit 2.

Stage Manager, True Love Lies

A Graduate of UBC Theatre’s Production & Design Program, Marijka freelances in stage management and artist logistics around Vancouver. Recent stage management credits include Mimi, or A Poisoner’s Comedy (Touchstone Theatre), Cendrillon (UBC Opera), The Nutcracker (Royal City Youth Ballet), and The Return of Futuristi (BellaLuna/UBC Theatre). 

 Directo, Almighty Voice and His Wife

Michael is an actor, choreographer, director and educator. Recent choreography includes The Threshing Floor created with Santee Smith, Untitled # 1535 for the Dusk Dances Festival, Triptych a short film which premiered on Bravo Television in 2007, Kent Monkman’s 5 channel video installation, Dance to the Berdashe, Pimooteewin (The Journey) the first Cree opera with music by Melissa Hui and libretto by Tomson Highway, and Almighty Voice and his Wife for Native Earth Performing Arts. Michael is currently co-chair of the Aboriginal Council at York University, where he is an Associate Professor in the Department of Theatre.
 

Writer, Goodness

Michael Redhill was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1966, but has lived in Toronto most of his life. Educated in the United States and Canada, he took seven years to complete a three-year BA in acting, film, and finally, English. Since 1988, he has published five collections of poetry, had eight plays of varying lengths performed, and been a cultural critic and essayist. He has worked as an editor, a ghost-writer, an anthologist, a scriptwriter for film and television, and in leaner times, as a waiter, a house-painter, and a bookseller. Currently, he is the publisher and one of the editors of Brick, a journal of things literary. His most recent books are Fidelity, a collection of short fiction, from Doubleday Canada, Martin Sloane, a novel from Doubleday Canada (nominated for the Giller Prize, 2001, The Trillium Prize, 2001, The Torgi Award, 2002, The City of Toronto Book Awards, 2002, The Books in Canada/Amazon.com Best First Novel Prize 2002, and winner of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book, Canada/Caribbean 2001), Light-crossing, a collection of poetry from Toronto’s House of Anansi Press, and Building Jerusalem, a play, from Playwrights’ Union Press, (winner of the 2001 Dora Prize for Best New Play, recipient of a Chalmers Award for Playwriting 2001, and nominated for a Governor General’s Award 2001). Goodness, since its premiere at Tarragon in 2005, has played in New York City; Girona, Spain; and Edinburgh, Scotland, where it won the Carol Tambor Best of Edinburgh Award and a Fringe First. Upcoming productions include theatres in Helsinki, Barcelona, and California. His most recent novel, Consolation, won the City of Toronto Book Award, and was long-listed for the 2007 Man Booker Prize. He is currently living in France.
 

Sound Designer, True Love Lies

Rinaldi is a Vancouver sound designer/actor/writer. Select Design credits include: Becky's New Car, Arts Club Theatre; Beyond Eden, Vancouver Playhouse; Famous Puppet Death Scenes, Old Trout Puppet Workshop; The Dissemblers, Touchstone Theatre; Ali and Ali 7, Neworld Theatre; The Goat... Or Who is Sylvia, Third Street Theatre; The Project, Solo Collective; [Sic], Theatre SKAM; Cozy Catastrophe, Rumble/Theatre Melee. Mike's sound designs have been nominated for and have won awards in Edmonton, Calgary, and Victoria.

Michael Redhill, Goodness

Paul Braunstein's selected theatre credits include: Birdland Theatre's The Last Day's of Judas Iscariot, Neptune Theatre's The Devils Disciple, for the Tarragon theatre, Kilt (Dora nomination), Midnight Sun, Well, Mimi. Paul has also worked extensively with Video Cabaret in Toronto as well as Cirque du Soleil. His theatre work has taken him to the Belfry Theatre in Victoria, ATP in Calgary and the NAC in Ottawa. Film Credits include Universal Studio's The Thing, Jesus Henry Christ, and Eddie. Television includes Nikita, Murdoch Mysteries, Less Than Kind, Really Me, Saving Hope, Train 48, and Rookie Blue.

White Girl, Almighty Voice and His Wife

hails from Saskatchewan and is a proud half-breed of French, Scandinavian and Métis roots. She loves photography, visiting strange and beautiful places and being fortunate enough to hear great stories along the way. Selected theatrical credits include a reading of Tara Beagan’s Free as Injuns (Native Earth/Canadian Stage), The Red Machine Part I-IV (The Room), Bannock Republic (Persephone Theatre), Salt Baby (Native Earth), Quilchena (Cross Currents), A Very Polite Genocide (Native Earth), Stretching Hide (Theatre Projects Manitoba), Copper Thunderbird (NAC/ English Theatre/ Magnetic North). Paula-Jean is a recipient of the National Arts Centre of Canada’s David Leighton Arts Fellowship Award. PJ is deeply honoured to be a part of Native Earth’s national tour of Daniel David Moses’s Almighty Voice and His Wife. Kitatamihinâwâw.
 

Stage Manager, Almighty Voice and His Wife

Richard Cliff is an Ottawa based Stage Manager, Production Manager and Administrator. He is proud to have worked for such diverse organizations as CAPAB Opera, Mainline Theatre, Imago Productions, the AWEsome Festival, Mister Leather Ottawa, the Lumière Festival and the National Arts Centre. Favourite productions include Snowman directed by Peter Hinton for Imago Theatre and Dido and Aeneas (with Actéon) directed by Marshall Pynkoski for Opera Atelier. Richard is also a founding member of The Wundertakers, a group of Ottawa based professional theatre artists dedicated to the production of live magic events. Look for their show Come Into Our Parlour in Ottawa in April, 2011.

Sound Designer, Almighty Voice and His Wife

Richard is a sound designer, actor, fight director and producer. Credits include China Doll (Nightwood Theatre), Late & Black Medea (Obsidian Theatre Company), Bear With Me (Nightwood Theatre), The Unnatural and Accidental Women, Salt Baby (Native Earth Performing Arts) as a sound designer and Banana Boys (fu-GEN Asian-Canadian Theatre Company), Little Dragon (K’now Theatre) and The Forbidden Phoenix (Lorraine Kimsa Theatre for Young People), and Peter Pan and King of Thieves (Stratford Festival) as a performer. He accomplishments in these productions have garnered him multiple Dora Mavor Moore nominations. He was supposed to be an accountant, but instead used his knowledge of accounting to help in running his company fu-GEN, which is dedicated to the development of Asian-Canadian Theatre Artists.

Director, Goodness

Ross Manson is an actor, director, and translator, and the founding Artistic Director of Volcano. He is the winner of a KM Hunter Award (for theatre), has been nominated for Dora awards as both an actor and director (winning in the latter category), and has been nominated for The Siminovitch Prize in Theatre. He trained in England at the University of London (MA in Theatre, specialty in Directing), in Germany (Directing apprenticeship, Stadttheater Freiburg), and in Canada (Banff School of Fine Arts). He also holds a pre-medical Biology degree with Distinction from Mount Allison University.

Selected productions directed for Volcano include: Another Africa, The Four Horsemen Project, created and directed with Kate Alton (Dora awards for Outstanding Play, Production, Direction, and Lighting); The Arabian Night (Roland Schimmelpfennig) at the SummerWorks Festival (Audience Choice Award, Best Production, highest attendance in 14 year history of festival); Variété at the Gladstone Hotel (1 Dora award, 5 nominations); Two Words for Snow (Richard Sanger) at Artword Theatre (3 Dora awards, 6 nominations, Governor General’s Award nomination); Weather (Rebecca Hope Terry) at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, Factory Theatre, Toronto, and tour of England; Mortality (Carol Shields, Tomson Highway, Paul Quarrington, Stephen Dobyns) at the Theatre Centre, Toronto; Lambton Kent (André Alexis) at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh; Nerd, co-created with Kate Alton for Overall Dance; Building Jerusalem, by Michael Redhill, (Dora awards for Outstanding Play and Production, Chalmers New Canadian Play Award, Governor General’s Award nomination). Ross has also directed for the Blyth Festival and CanStage. Upcoming work includes directing for the Svenska Teatern in Helsinki, and Theatre du Pif in Hong Kong, plus tours of work to Berlin and Dublin.

As an actor, Ross has appeared in film, television, radio, and in leading roles at over 20 theatres across Canada. He has worked for such directors as Ireland’s Joe Dowling, England’s Jonathan Miller and Braham Murray, and Canada’s Richard Rose and Daniel Brooks. Selected recent roles include Cardinal Barberini in Brecht’s Galileo (Wilma Theatre, Philadelphia), Marcus in Brad Fraser’s Cold Meat Party (Factory Theatre, Toronto), and one of a cast of five that presented Goethe’s Faust (Tarragon Theatre, Toronto).

Ross has translated three plays from German: Woyzeck (staged in 1993 by Volcano); The Third Land (staged in 1994 by Volcano) and, currently underway, The Caucasian Chalk Circle (a project led by Richard Greenblatt, with new music by John Millard).

Assistant Stage Manager and Props Collection, True Love Lies

Stacy Sherlock received her BFA in technical theatre design and production from UBC in 2009. Currently she is interning with the Arts Club for Dramaturgy and at Electric Company Theatre as an Administrative Assistant. As part of this years’ Walking Fish Festival, Stacy recently performed her devised show At First I Thought It Was... Select credits include: Production Design for Frisk (Neworld Theatre – HIVE 3) Mrs. Klein (Jericho Arts Centre) and RADIUS (Open Source Theatre), Technical Direction/Production Management for House/Home (Pi Theatre – HIVE 3), Assistant Stage Management for After The Quake (Pi Theatre & Rumble Productions), Box Office Manager/Production Assistant for PodPlays (Neworld Theatre) and Sea Of Sand (The Only Animal), Sound Design for LoveSong (Edmonton / Vancouver Fringe Festival) Macbeth (Carousel Theatre) and The Idiot’s Karamazov (UBC).

Young Althea, Goodness

Tara is an actor, writer and producer. As an actor, she worked in both classical theatre and new work. Some favourite classical roles include Juliet (Citadel), Rosalind (Stratford Festival Conservatory), Hermia (Citadel), Lady Anne (Free Will Players), Lady Bona (Stratford Festival). Tara has accumulated an enviable list of workshop & performance credits on some of the most daring new plays in Canada. A few credits include Marilyn Monroe in My One and Only, and Pal in Down the Main Drag (both at ATP), and a season of new works at the Blyth Festival. Other roles include Celeste in Transit of Venus (Workshop West), Mayella in To Kill a Mockingbird (Citadel/MTC), Catherine in Proof (Globe), and Scout in Popcorn (Citadel), for which she won the Elizabeth Sterling Haynes Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role. Tara’s training includes the Oxford School of Drama and a BFA in Acting from the University of Alberta. She occasionally writes for Frank Moher's online magazine at HYPERLINK "http://www.backofthebook.ca/"www.backofthebook.ca. Tara is the producer of Goodness in Rwanda, a feature documentary about the tour of Goodness to Rwanda in 2009, to be released in 2012.  HYPERLINK "http://www.goodnessinrwanda.com/"www.goodnessinrwanda.com