THE TORONTO COMPANY BIOSALEX DALLAS - Performer
Alex Dallas was born and raised in the UK, and immigrated to Canada in 1994. This is Alex's 20th year of Canadian Fringing! She has appeared with Sensible Footwear, English Suitcase Theatre Company and has five solo shows that have toured the Fringes from Australia to Vancouver and many places in between. Drama Queen, her last show in the Toronto Fringe was aired on Bravo TV. She has played Lady Macbeth, Madam Arcati and Rita among others and made her nude stage debut in Mom's the Word at the age of 48. This year she was seen in the Vagina Monologues and Alan Bennet's Talking Heads Monologue, " Her Big Chance."
Alex is proud to realize that her daughter is old enough to volunteer for the Fringe, and dedicates her performance to Ruby, who has seen the inside of more theatres than the average actor!
LAURA GARDNER- Set and Costume Designer
A Toronto-based designer, Laura’s past projects include: design assistant of West Side Story (Stratford Festival); production design of The Great Gatsby, adapted and directed by David Rotenburg; design assistant for The Music Man (Stratford Festival); costume designer of The Scene (Pilot Group); costume designer of Little Women (Randolph Academy); design assistant for To Kill a Mockingbird (Stratford Festival); set design for Gorey Story (Thistle Project); set designer for The Classical Theatre Project’s productions of Othello, Hamlet, Romeo & Juliet, and A Midsummer Nights’ Dream; assistant costume and prop design on The Gambler (Artword Theatre); head of wardrobe for Doctor Barnardo’s Children and That Summer (4th Line Theatre); and, design coordinator for Beneath the Banyan Tree (Theatre Direct). In addition to her design work, Laura has also worked professionally as a seamstress and painter for many theatrical productions. This past fall, Laura was a contributor on the design of one of Toronto’s newest theatre’s, the Lower Ossington Theatre.
JUSTINE HANDLER – Associate Producer
Justine Handler is normally a Toronto based Event Planner. She has worked on three different shows as Fundraising, Sponsorship and Publicity Consultant: Reesor (Sunshine Players, 2007 Fringe), Pelee (Reesor Productions, 2008 SummerWorks Theatre Festival), and Petrichor (Kitchen Band Production, 2009 Hatch Festival). Currently Justine is working as an event planner with the Canadian Red Cross.
BRYN JENNINGS - Director
Bryn Jennings is a theatre artist, specifically interested in the creation of new interdisciplinary works. Bryn is the Artistic Director of Curious Carnivore. Recent works by Curious Carnivore include; The Best Recipe for PB&J (Curious Carnivore/The Kitchen Collectives) co-created with ensemble members Caitlin Morris-Cornfield and Aaron Rothermund, and My Inner Blonde Ambition (or How Madonna Made Me The Person I Am Today) a performance installation created and performed by Bryn for Rose Bertin's Page 666 exhibit.
Bryn is currently developing a full length movement based play in collaboration with experimental musician Matt Smith, best known for his project Nifty. Curious Carnivore held its first workshop of the piece in May 2009.
Bryn is also a frequent collaborator with surprise performance. Her work with surprise includes assistant directing save us!!! [Hamletown] as part of Harbourfront Centre’s HATCH performance residencies and performing in Wet Dream in the 2009 Rhubarb Festival. Next up with surprise, Bryn will be traveling to Cardiff, Wales in Fall 2009 to participate in a residency with surprise performance. During the residency surprise performance will be creating a new site specific version of Hamletown with local performers.
Directing credits include; Not I (Curious Carnivore/Back Burner Productions) and Charters (aka the humanitarian) (Yeah Me Too/SummerWorks)
Assistant directing credits include; Ubuntu (The Cape Town Project) (Theatrefront/Tarragon Theatre/Neptune Theatre) dir. Daryl Cloran save us!!! [Hamletown] (surprise performance/HATCH festival) dir. Chad Dembski, The Cape Town Project (Theatrefront/Tarragon Workspace) dir. Daryl Cloran, Curse's Child (Back Burner Productions) dir. Guy Doucette, and Let's Talk About Beds (Back Burner Productions/Toronto Fringe Festival) dir. Dawn Nearing
Upcoming: In September 2009 Bryn will be back with Theatrefront, assistant directing the first play in their Mill Cycle, We Are Now Brody by Matt MacFadzean.
MICHAEL LEWANDOWSKI - Lighting Designer
Michael normally makes his living as a Stage Manager, living in Toronto. He has worked for such companies as Canadian Opera Company, Canadian Stage, Opera Atalier, Welcome Wood, TIFF to name the few. He has also worked for TV as a Floor Director on Canadian Aboriginal awards, CTV Fall Lunch, MTV Live. He is excited to be a part of this production and trying his hands in Lighting Design after a long break. Thank you to Kevin and his family, friends for your support. Congratulations to the cast on a great show. And lastly a HUGE pat on the back to Ben for all his hard work on this and making this show possible...
MEGAN LILEY – Stage Manager
Megan has been skulking around the summer festivals since forever. Past fringe experience includes last year's Radioplay (writer/producer) and Point of Departure in 2007 (stage-manager). She is an artistic associate with Royal Porcupine Productions, regular performer with Lunacy Cabaret and founding member of Shameless Dames Burlesque (2004-2009). She is currently writing a new play (and mastering her procrastination skills), and beginning a multiplatform theatrical creation with a collective that has yet to be named, but includes the most talented people she has ever met (aside from the cast and crew of interrogation) God bless the 2.5 pint threshold that got her to agree to this project.
BEN NOBLE Playwright/Performer
Ben is an actor, playwright and the Creative Producer of Fairly Lucid Productions. A graduate of the 2002 St Martin's Performance Ensemble in Melbourne Australia, Ben trained with the Atlantic Theater Company in New York and is a current member of Carter Thor Studios and 20 Buck Films.
As a playwright, Benjamin's first play "Pick A Card" won 3rd prize in the St Martins Playwriting Competition in 2002. In 2004 he was commissioned to write "Short Trip" for St Martins as part of The Scattergun Project, which took out St Martin's Best Play that year. "Go, Fish" was short listed for St Martin's Play of the Year in 2005. In 2005 & 2006, he was invited to be one of the few Australian delegates at World InterPlay – an International Playwrights festival. He was recently commissioned by Riverland Theatre Company to co-write and dramaturge "HOONS" that premiered at Adelaide Fringe Festival in 2008. Benjamin's work has also been performed and workshopped throughout Australia and in New York. The original working of "interrogation” is scheduled to be translated and adapted into a Spanish short film to be shot in Mexico City.
As a producer, Ben was the co-curator/producer for the Melbourne Fringe Festival at St Martins Youth Arts Centre in Australia, staged readings within Australia and Canada and produced functions for Fairly Lucid Productions including Lucidal – A Classical Concert, Murder on the Dance Floor & The Trashy 80’s Prom. He also coaches actors across Canada privately and with John Robert Powers Academy.
As an actor he took out the Peer and Audience awards in St Martin's 2002 Season of New International Work for Best Actor and received a Honourable Mention for his performance in the 2004 Melbourne International Fringe Festival. Selected credits: Binary (White Raven Productions) Best Ensemble 2008 NOW Magazine, Something from Nothing (Cascade Theatre) One Last (Summerworks) Romeo & Juliet (Company X), The Scattergun Project (St Martin's), Phaedra's Love (Organised Chaos), interrogation (Fairly Lucid). Ben has appeared in a variety of films and TV both in Canada and Australia. His latest short “Cheap Tickets” was screened in Boston, Montreal and Toronto.
Upcoming: LabCab Festival 2009.
KARIE RICHARDS - Performer
Karie Richards is a member of Carter Thor Studios East, studying with acting coach Jock MacDonald. Theatre credits include the role of Margot in Dial M for Murder (The Port Stanley Festival Theatre), Honey in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf , Jane in Absurd Person Singular, and Alma in Summer and Smoke (Alumnae Theatre Company). Recent television and film credits include the role of Media Archeologist on the CBC TV Comedy show Jimmy MacDonald’s Canada, and Maggie in Jennifer Liao’s independent short film, Pride War.
CHRISTOPHER SANDES – Sound Design
Christopher Sandes is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, arranger, producer, performer and studio musician currently living in Toronto, Canada. He has lived and studied music in France, Spain, Indonesia, Morocco and India. Although he does not consider himself a ‘world music’ player (finding the clichés odious) he does regard himself as an adventurer, instrument collector, fabulist and sponge in the vein of a musical Sir Richard Burton.
Christopher is an accomplished guitarist playing a wide variety of stringed instruments including the Sitar, Pedal and Lap Steel. He is also most commonly found playing keyed instruments of any variety in diverse projects as a Barrelhouse Pianist, B3 Organist, melancholy accordionist and as an ongoing experiment in the studio: synthesist.
Recently Christopher did all the source music and portions of the score for You Might As Well Live a full length feature film (in theatres Fall 2009) as well as the full score of the documentary The Alma Drawings.
Christopher is a member of Steamboat, The Hylozoists, The Andre Ethier Band and plays occasionally with Doug Paisley, Mantler and Sandro Perri.
