Board

PARC member Nadine Salami (she/her) got her theatre and writing training and experience in Paris. She also co-founded an amateur theatre company, taught improv techniques to engineering students and corporate executives, and she had her first short plays staged by director Nicolas Bigard at Théâtre MC93 in France. She joined PARC, as well as the Island Improv Company in 2018, and has taken part in a few playwriting and theatre events in the Maritimes. Nadine is a certified coach, an assistant professor at the University of PEI and an economist trained at the London School of Economist and Sciences-Po Paris.

Chuck Homewood (he/him) is a former Executive Director of Associated Designers of Canada (ADC) and the Canadian Institute of Theatre Technology (CITT), General Manager of Ship’s Company Theatre, Producer for Classical Kids and Director of Education of Neptune Theatre. He has been the Musical Director of over 70 productions to date, both in Canada and internationally. Most recently, Chuck was the Director of Education for the American Musical Theatre Academy in Shangai and Bejing.

Plays by Catherine Banks (she/her) have been performed across Canada, Scotland, the US and Catalonia and include: Miss N’ Me; It Is Solved By Walking; Bone Cage; Three Storey, Ocean View; and Bitter Rose, which aired on Bravo! Canada. Her work has been described as poetic, darkly humorous, courageous, and beautifully theatrical. Bone Cage premiered in 2007, and went on to win the Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama in 2008. It Is Solved By Walking won the Governor General’s Literary Award in 2012, was translated into Catalan by Tant per Tant, and was one of three Canadian plays to tour Catalonia in 2012. Catherine has adapted Ernest Buckler’s novel The Mountain and the Valley for the stage. Her play Downed Hearts is set to premiere in 2021 and she is working on a new play The King of Days. A film adaptation of Bone Cage directed by Taylor Olson was the reciept of four audience awards at FIN including Best Screenplay. Catherine has led playwriting classes at Dalhousie University and Sage Hill.

Jamie (he/him) returned to playwriting and the theatre in 2012 with his play, Titanic: The Fated Voyage, at Halifax’s Cunard Centre. In 2015 he wrote the first draft of Kamp:The Musical with composer Garry Williams, which was workshopped at the PARC Playwrights Colony in 2016. Also in 2016 he wrote Before the Leaves Turn, which toured Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Two recent plays Sherlock and John;The Forgotten Case and Jukie and Her Dad both benefitted from PARC programs. Presently he is researching a new play about schizophrenia in early 19 th century London. He is a member of PARC, TNS, PGC, CMTWC, ACTRA, CAEA and serves on the boards of PAL Halifax and Kick At the Dark Theatre. Jamie is also an actor, puppeteer and fountain pen enthusiast.

PARC member Berni Stapleton (she/her) is a Newfoundland- Labrador writer and performer of unique distinction. She was just listed on the Playwrights Guild of Canada Sure Fire List of Top 23 plays from female playwrights in Canada (for The Pope and Princess Di). Her play Woman in a Monkey Cage was also listed. She is the recipient of the 2018 Arts and Letters award for best dramatic script. She is the recipient of a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts to write her book for young Selkies and other creatures called: Girly Muckle and the Queer Hands. Her new one woman show is called Late Lesbians and Other Bloomers. She is one of the featured performers in the acclaimed Artistic Fraud production of Between Breaths.

She is a recipient of The Rhonda Payne award from Arts NL. She is a past recipient of the WANL award for best work in non-fiction for her contribution to the book They Let Down Baskets.(Published by Creative Book Publishing and co-created with the esteemed Chris Brookes and Jamie Lewis.) Her short stories and essays have appeared in Riddle Fence and The Newfoundland Quarterly. She is a recipient of the Ambassador of Tourism award from Hospitality NL. Berni was the Artistic Director of the Grand Bank Regional Theatre Festival for 11 years. She has been a playwright-in- residence with the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, Playwrights’ Workshop Montreal, Alberta Theatre Projects, CanStage, PARC, and other national companies. Her plays are regularly produced nationally and internationally. They include Offensive To Some, Brazil Square, The Haunting of Margaret Duley and Our Frances. Berni’s other books include This is the Cat and Rants, Riffs and Roars (Creative Publishing) and new works include Love, Life. Berni was dramaturge for and helped devise transVersing. Find out more by checking out latest projects, blogs, and the online shop at www.bernistapleton.com

Lindsay Kyte (she/her) is a playwright/performer originally from Reserve Mines, Cape Breton. She has a Masters of Acting from the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts in England (LIPA), where Sir Paul McCartney gave Kyte her degree. Kyte has performed on many stages and screens across Canada and her award-winning play, Tompkinsville, was declared “a classic — an unforgettable and important addition to the canon of Cape Breton literature.” Kyte’s play, Toronto Adventures has also been produced across the East Coast. Kyte has hosted/written for documentaries/TV, is a keynote speaker (TEDx), and a freelance journalist. She was chosen by Rita MacNeil’s family to create Dear Rita, a musical celebration of our Rita, which was to premiere Summer 2020 at the Charlottetown Festival and the Savoy Theatre. Hoping it sees a stage soon!

lindsaykyte.com

Azal Dosanjh (he/him) is a theatre artist from India, now residing in St. John’s, Newfoundland. His recent directing credits include Sun in an Empty Room (GroupHug Productions, 2021), Lights Out (Theatre Perimetric, 2021), Relief (Aariz Theatre, 2021), BURROW (Eastern Front Theatre & CB Nuit, 2020 & 2021), Until Death Do Us Part (Different Strokes Theatre, 2020), and The Boor (Aariz Theatre, 2019). He has also worked with Perchance Theatre as Assistant Director on projects such as Julius Caesar (2019), Hamlet (2021), and the upcoming Power of One 2.0 – World Classics (2021). He is a graduate of the Stage and Screen Technique Diploma from the Memorial University of Newfoundland and has trained with mentors such as Danielle Irvine (Perchance Theatre), Jillian Keiley and Robert Chafe (Artistic Fraud), and Richard Rose (Atlantic Repertory Company). Azal is currently adapting and developing a series of political satires originally written by Gursharan Singh, in a collection entitled Politically Relative.

Len Falkenstein (he/him) is Director of Drama at the University of New Brunswick, where he teaches courses in theatre and playwriting and directs productions for Theatre UNB. He is also Artistic Director of Fredericton’s NotaBle Acts Theatre Company, which is dedicated to developing and producing new plays by New Brunswick playwrights, and Fredericton’s outdoor Shakespeare company, Bard in the Barracks. Len’s plays have been produced across the country at Fringe festivals, Toronto’s SummerWorks Performance Festival, the NotaBle Acts Theatre Festival, and the Saint John Theatre Company’s Canadian Stages series. They include Lac/Athabasca (second prize winner, Herman Voaden national playwriting competition; published by Playwrights Canada Press); Utopia (second prize winner, Ottawa Little Theatre national one act playwriting competition); Doppelgänger (published in Ryga, volume 1), Soft Target, Free/Fall, and Happy City. Len is a member of PARC, the Playwrights Guild of Canada, and a certified actor-combatant with Fight Directors Canada.

Catherine O’Brien (she/her) is the co-founder and Artistic Director of Young at Heart Theatre, now in its 15th year. She served as Artistic Director for the Harbourfront Theatre Summer Festival for three seasons, and most recently, Interim Executive Director at the Kings Playhouse in Georgetown. She is an actor, director, writer and producer. Catherine has worked in theatres across Canada and spent several seasons performing in the Charlottetown Festival, playing various roles including Miss Stacy in Anne of Green Gables, and The Female Authority Figure in Hairspray. Young at Heart Theatre has recently partnered with Kings Playhouse and Desert Island Theatre to produce the first annual Fresh From the Island New Works Festival.

Sue Rose (she/her) has been active in the theatre community in Sackville, New Brunswick since 2007 as an actor, costumer, director and playwright. She served as founding member and board member of Performers’ Theatre Company from 2007 to 2021. She is currently the President of the board of Sackville’s summer arts festival, Festival By The Marsh. She was playwright-in-residence with Live Bait Theatre in Sackville in 2020-21. Sue’s most recent play, A Banishment Of Poets, was staged by Performers’ Theatre Company in the summer of 2021. She is currently working with playwright and dramaturge Vern Thiessen to develop her play, The Last Flight To Enceladus. Plans are afoot for a staging in the summer of 2022.

Tara Taylor (she/her) is the co-founder and festival director for The Emerging Lens Film Festival and Charles Taylor Theatre and Media Arts. She is a filmmaker, playwright, actress, multidisciplinary artist, singer and licensed hairstylist. She is the Manager of Community Navigation for the Lighthouse Arts Centre (a new arts, entertainment and production hub in Downtown Halifax). She is the Arts and Culture Columnist for CBC Information Morning. She serves as a vice-chair for Women in Film and Theatre – Atlantic and a board member for Screen Nova Scotia. She is currently a member of AFCOOP, Theatre Nova Scotia, PARC, the Bus Stop Theatre and an artist in the PERFORM Program. Tara is a graduate of the Centre for Art Tapes’ media scholarship program. Tara has screened her short films in various places, has cast local talent in features and TV shows, and has co-coordinated youth media arts March Break Video Camps. Tara has also produced and in some cases starred in Dreamgirls, The Color Purple and The Wiz, wrote an original musical about the life of Viola Desmond staged at The Spatz theatre in 2018 and Dartmouth Players Theatre in 2019. She is currently writing her new musical works entitled, Hood Habits and Love, Peace and Hairgrease in the playwrights unit under Eastern Front Theatre. Tara is working with the Culture Link and Peter Henry architect towards releasing a performance space in East Preston.

Lindsay Thompson (she/her) is a Cape Breton based playwright, director and actress who writes with a focus on women’s stories. Some of her earlier work exhibited at the Elizabeth Boardmore One Act Festival includes: Breaking The Tower (Best Play); Herstory (Best Ensemble, Best Director, Best Play); Spear (Best Ensemble, Best Play); and The Top of the Tree (Best Actress, Best supporting Actor, Elizabeth Boardmore writing award). Lindsay has done a variety of creative writing work for Park’s Canada’s: The Fortress of Louisbourg including musicals and street scenes for regular programming. In 2016, she debuted Katherine’s Island, a play based on the life of Katherine MacLennan which was produced by The Fortress of Louisbourg Association in partnership with The Old Sydney Society and remounted as a fundraiser for the Cape Breton Regional Library. Lindsay has debuted two original full-length musicals and one full-length play at The Highland Arts Theater entitled: Herstory: A Musical Guide for the Modern Woman (2016); See Jane Run, a musical about Jane from Tarzan (2019); and Sweet Enough (2020). Currently, Lindsay is working on a library comedy called Overdue.

Jean-Michel Cliche (he/him) is a theatre artist and educator of Lebanese and French descent based out of Fredericton, NB. He is the Artistic Director of Hyperloop Theatre and Co-Artistic Director of Solo Chicken Production’s the coop. He is also a contract associate instructor at the University of New Brunswick’s drama department. Jean-Michel is trained fight and violence director and is a certified member of Fight Directors Canada. His plays have been performed and workshopped by Theatre New Brunswick, Saint John Theatre Company, Lunchbox Theatre, NotaBle Acts Theatre Company, Theatre St. Thomas, and more. His play Space Girl was featured as the 2020 NotaBle Acts Main Stage production and was subsequently performed remotely for the Fredericton Playhouse, Eastern Front Theatre’s STAGES Festival, Toronto Fringe, and Vancouver Fringe.

Wesley J. Colford (they/them) is a Dora-Nominated playwright and theatre artist from Cape Breton who currently resides in Sydney, NS where they operate as the inaugural Artistic & Executive Director of the Highland Arts Theatre (or HAT). They studied theatre performance at Sheridan and George Brown College and spent eight years working in Toronto’s independent theatre scene, working as a writer, director, actor, and producer for multiple companies, as well as box office manager for Tarragon Theatre. Their plays have been produced in three provinces and have won national awards, been published, and adapted for film. Under their leadership, the Highland Arts Theatre has produced more than 80 mainstage theatrical productions in the past seven years and been nominated for Merritt, Excellence in Business, and Nova Scotia Music Industry Awards. They are a recipient of a 2015 Vital Award, the 2016 Jack Yazer Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award, and have been nominated for “Business Person of the Year” from the Sydney and Area Chamber of Commerce Excellence in Business Awards. They were recently honoured as one of the Globe & Mail’s “Canadian Arts Heroes of 2020” for their work developing the HAT’s bold new funding model, Radical Access.

Melissa Mullen (she/her) is an actor and writer based in P.E.I. Her first play, Rough Waters, was produced by Neptune Theatre in Halifax and toured the Island with Theatre PEI. A graduate of the National Theatre School of Canada, she performed professionally for many years in Eastern Canada. She is a former member of Drill Queens Comedy and a founding member of Beyond the Bridge Theatre, with which she has co-produced and performed in Marion Bridge and most recently The Attic, The Pearls, and Three Fine Girls.  She collaborated with Rob MacLean on a stage adaptation of Sir Andrew Macphail’s The Master’ Wife  and co-wrote a short elevator play, Dear Mr. Keith, for Theatre Yes and Magnetic North Theatre Festival. Melissa has been a member of PARC for many years and attended the PARC colony as both a writer and actor.