Rice Boy Cover.indd - Stratford Festival

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The Company deena Aziz – actor Stratford debut: Auntie in Rice Boy. Deena Aziz hails from Montreal, where she works as an actor, producer and story editor for theatre and film. Stage credits include The Veil (One Light Theatre/Fajr Festival Tehran), the award-winning production of Anosh Irani’s Bombay Black (Cahoots Theatre Projects/Vancouver Arts Club) and the Canadian premières of Tony Kushner’s Homebody/Kabul (Dora nomination; Mercury Theatre) and Rice Boy (CanStage). Over 15 years of play development experience and varied skills have garnered work with companies across the country, including the Centaur Theatre, Geordie Productions, Rezolution Pictures, Infinithéâtre, BBR Productions, Nightwood, Nightswimming, NAC, NFB and a brief stint on the short-lived CBC “daytime drama” North/South. raoul bhaneja – actor Stratford debut: Father in Rice Boy. Theatre credits include the Montreal English Critics Circle Award-winner Hamlet (solo) (Hope and Hell Theatre with Edinburgh Festival Fringe, PS122 New York, Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Banff Centre); The House of Many Tongues, Bashir Lazhar, Helen’s Necklace, The Domino Heart (Tarragon Theatre); Savage Sensuality (Shakespeare’s Globe, U.K. – Christopher Plummer Fellowship); The School for Wives (Soulpepper Theatre); Hamlet (Neptune Theatre); Standing Female Nude (Storm Collective); The Cherry Orchard (Theatre Columbus/Smith-Gilmour). Selected film: The Sentinel, Weirdsville, Touch of Pink, Ararat, Godsend, Extraordinary Visitor and A Wake. Selected TV: The Dresden Files (Sci Fi), Runaway (CW), Train 48 (Global), The Summit, At the Hotel, Open Heart (CBC). Raoul is a Gemini and Canadian Comedy Award nominee and a graduate of The National Theatre School of Canada. You My People is his latest recording with his Maple Blues Award-winning quartet Raoul and the Big Time. robert blacker – dramaturge Second season: Dramaturge for the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. Dramaturge for Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Rice Boy. Over 50 projects from Robert’s eight years as artistic director of the Sundance Theatre Labs went on to production, including I Am My Own Wife (Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize), The Laramie Project and the Tony Award-winning musicals The Light in the Piazza and Spring Awakening. He was interim chair of playwriting at Yale School of Drama in 2004-5 and has taught playwriting and Shakespeare studies in the graduate programs at Columbia, Iowa and Yale. He has dramaturged 12 productions of Shakespeare for Des McAnuff and others. At Stratford he was dramaturge on Macbeth (1983) and last season’s Romeo and Juliet and Caesar and Cleopatra. Blacker was McAnuff’s associate artistic director at La Jolla Playhouse, where he worked on The Who’s Tommy and Steppenwolf’s The Grapes of Wrath, and participated in season planning. He was the first dramaturge at Joseph Papp’s Public Theater (New York) and is a graduate of Cornell. Marie fewer – assistant stage manager Fifth season: Assistant stage manager of Macbeth and Rice Boy. Previous credits at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival include Romeo and Juliet, Caesar and Cleopatra, My One and Only, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Duchess of Malfi, The Blonde, the Brunette and the Vengeful Redhead and Noises Off. Other theatre credits include That Summer (Theatre Erindale, University of Toronto at Mississauga); Léo, Alice’s Affair, Bea’s Niece and Private Jokes Public Places (Tarragon Theatre); The Babysitter (Theatre Direct Canada/Eldritch Theatre); Better Parts, Fish Eyes, Jamaica Man and blood.claat (Stage3: word.sound.power, produced by Theatre Passe Muraille/Obsidian Theatre Company); Wrong For Each Other (Bluewater Summer Playhouse); and Fire (Charlottetown Festival). Marie is a graduate of the theatre arts – technical production program at the Sheridan Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning. “Immense gratitude goes to my parents and Michael for their continued love and support.” simon fon – stunt coordinator Stratford debut: Fight director of West Side Story and stunt coordinator of Macbeth, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Rice Boy. Simon is an award-winning stunt coordinator, executive producer (AOF Festival California – Best Martial Arts Sequence) and a member of Fight Directors Canada as a fight master, teaching thousands of people in stage combat over the past 18 years. Recently, stunt coordinator on Cooper’s Camera with Dave Foley, Disney’s Power Rangers In Training and Marvel’s Spiderman (the DVD training spot). Stunt performing credits include series stunt double (season III) for the character of Jesse on the TV series Mutant X, Hemingway vs. Callaghan for CBC, Earth: Final Conflict, Prince Charming (HBO) and Tracker for TV/ Film. Simon also worked on the Genie Award-winning short Hangman’s Bride (fight director and actor). In theatre Simon has worked at CanStage, Soulpepper, Factory Theatre, Tarragon Theatre, Theatre Passe Muraille, YPT/Lorraine Kimsa, Grand Theatre (London) and Theatre by the Bay (Barrie). Anita Majumdar – actor Stratford debut: Tina in Rice Boy. A graduate of the National Theatre School of Canada, Anita holds a degree in English, Theatre and South Asian Languages from the University of British Columbia. She is a classically trained dancer in Kathak, but has also studied Bharatnatyam and Odissi. She is also Nightswimming Theatre’s 2009/10 Playwright in Residence. Theatre credits include Shakuntala (Pleiades Theatre/Harbourfront Centre Theatre), The Misfit (self-written, PuSh Festival/Theatre Passe Muraille), Bombay Black (Cahoots Theatre Projects/Arts Club Theatre), Fish Eyes (self-written, Dora-nominated, Theatre Passe Muraille/The Other Festival, India) and Tales from Ovid (Centaur Theatre). Film credits include Diverted (CBC/Shaftesbury) and Murder Unveiled (CBC/Force Four), loosely based on the true life story of Jassi Sidhu, for which Anita received her first acting award at the Asian Festival of First Films in Singapore. Upcoming: Aisha n’ Ben (Theatre Ji) and Hindi Cinema Gave Me Unrealistic Expectations About Men (working title) (Theatre Ji). Araya Mengesha – actor Stratford debut: Fleance in Macbeth, Tommy in Rice Boy and appears in Julius Caesar. Araya Mengesha is a 2009 graduate of the Ryerson Theatre School program and has been acting professionally for more than 10 years. This will be his first appearance on the Stratford Shakespeare Festival stages. Past credits include hosting the Gemini-nominated Mystery Hunters, seasons one through four (TV), Official Toronto International Film Festival selection Nurse. Fighter.Boy (film) and the Canadian première of Disney’s The Lion King (stage) as well as numerous TV series and commercial roles. Araya would like to give a special thanks to his mother, Selamawit, for her endless love and support. sam Moses – actor Third season: Grandfather in Rice Boy. Sam was born in India. He is a twin, and the youngest of 11 children. He began his career dancing with the National Ballet of Canada and has worked in most of the major theatres in Canada, including the Shaw and Stratford Festivals. Theatre includes Twelfth Night, Bent, Kilt, A Chorus Line, Over the River and Through the Woods, Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof and Hysterium in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Film work includes Ghostbusters, Moscow on the Hudson, Adventures in Babysitting and 16 Blocks. TV work includes This Is Wonderland, The Newsroom, Nikita and Due South. He can currently be heard in Monsoon House on CBC Radio 1 on Thursday mornings. Sam is married to Anne, a former National Ballet dancer, and has two sons, a daughter and three wonderful grandchildren. He is thrilled to be back in Stratford – where he won a Guthrie Award in 1974! 6
Marylu Moyer – production stage manager (Studio Theatre) 29th season: Production stage manager of the Studio Theatre. Most recently Marylu stage-managed The Syringa Tree for the Grand Theatre and A Christmas Carol for Theatre Calgary. She is delighted to be returning to the Studio Theatre. As part of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival’s stage management team since 1986, Marylu has worked on 38 different shows in the Festival, Avon, Tom Patterson and Studio theatres and also as production stage manager in the Tom Patterson and Avon theatres. Elsewhere Marylu has worked for theatre companies across Canada and even as far away as Singapore, stage-managing such shows as Alice in Wonderland, Anne of Green Gables, Blithe Spirit, Boy Gets Girl, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Harry Chapin: Lies and Legends, Hedda Gabler, Into the Woods, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Our Town, Passion, The Phantom of the Opera and The Speckled Band. Anand rajaram – actor Stratford debut: Fish Seller/Clerk/Umbrella Man/Nut Seller in Rice Boy. Mr. Rajaram is an actor, writer, director, mime, performance artist and artistic director for both @N@f@N@ (www.onofono. ca) and for the South Asian theatre company diaspoRadicals, which produced the Dishoom! festival in May 2009, where he presented his award-winning show, Cowboys & Indians. Past theatre includes work with VideoCabaret, CORPUS, Odyssey, The Second City and CanStage, where he performed in the original Canadian production of Rice Boy. In the fall, he will be working with Puppetmongers in Chris Earle’s adaptation of Charles Dickens’s Hard Times. Upcoming film includes The Good Friday, You Are Here, Silent But Deadly and Suck, and on television, in fall 2009, Majority Rules and two animated series, The Dating Guy and Five Boys and a Garden Hose. He teaches shadow puppetry and has a BA in theatre from the University of Waterloo. thomas ryder Payne – sound designer Stratford debut: Sound designer of Rice Boy. Thomas Ryder Payne is a Toronto-based composer, sound designer, producer and teacher. He spent six years recording and touring with the Junonominated rock band Joydrop, including recording two records, touring North America extensively and writing the Top 20 single “Sometimes Wanna Die.” As a producer, Thomas works primarily from his home studio and has produced records for Rebekah Higgs, Parker and Kathryn Rose, among others. As a sound designer/composer for the theatre he received his first Dora Award last year and is excited to be working in Stratford. Recent designs include Mourning Dove (Ark Collective), Happy Days (National Arts Centre), If We Were Birds (SummerWorks), My Fellow Creatures (Buddies), Alias Godot (Tarragon), Madre (Aluna Theatre, Dora Award for Best Sound Design/Composition), The Sheep and the Whale (Cahoots/Modern Times) and bloom (Modern Times, Dora nomination) and Léo (Tarragon, Dora nomination). brian scott – stage manager 16th season: Stage manager of Macbeth and Rice Boy. For the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, Brian has stage managed King Lear, Julius Caesar, The Taming of the Shrew, Twelfth Night, The Country Wife, Cyrano de Bergerac, Oedipus Rex, Medea, Waiting for Godot, The Odyssey, To Kill a Mockingbird, A Fitting Confusion, London Assurance, Noises Off, Private Lives, Present Laughter, Into the Woods and last season’s Romeo and Juliet. Stage management credits elsewhere include King Lear (Lincoln Center), Don Carlos, The Duchess of Malfi and Coriolanus (Shakespeare Theatre). Brian lives in Stratford with his partner, Francesca Callow, and their young son, Orlando. jessica Poirier-chang – designer Third season: Designer of Rice Boy. Jessica is from Montreal, where she graduated from NTS (2006). She is thrilled to be back at the Festival, having designed the set for Palmer Park last year. Past costume design credits: Dangerous Liaisons (Saidye Bronfman), Marie Stuart (Rideau Vert), the opera Il Mondo della Luna (Monument National), Salomé (Prospero), The Old Maid and the Thief (Théâtre Maisonneuve) and Crime and Punishment (Monument National). Set and costume design credits include Dog Sees God and Sunlight Zone in Toronto, Ceci n’est pas une Fable, Dernier Pas du Marcheur, Gala de l’Humour and comedian Jean-Michel Anctil’s comeback comedy show, Tel Quel. Jessica is also costume design assistant for Robert Lepage’s The Ring Cycle, which will be presented at the Metropolitan Opera in N.Y. Upcoming projects: costume designer for A Streetcar Named Desire (Rideau Vert) and set designer for the short film De L’Autre Côté. Jessica is a recipient of a Tyrone Guthrie Award. jonathan Purdon – actor Stratford debut: Caithness in Macbeth, Flavius/Volumnius in Julius Caesar and Mr. Harris/Mennonite Farmer in Rice Boy. Jonathan is thrilled to be making his Stratford Shakespeare Festival debut. He has appeared in theatres across the country. Favourites include Cliff in Cabaret at the Sudbury Theatre Centre, Nick in Over the River and Through the Woods for Neptune Theatre, the Beast in Beauty and the Beast for Theatre New Brunswick, Soapy Smith in The Lion of the Yukon for Playbill Theatre and Greg in Corker for Theatre North West in British Columbia. Jonathan has also appeared in a variety of television shows and films and was most recently seen in the new hit television series Flashpoint. He is a graduate of the University of Alberta’s BFA acting program and was awarded the Dame Peggy Ashcroft scholarship to attend the British American Drama Academy in Oxford, England. siobhán sleath – assistant lighting designer Third season: Assistant lighting designer of Cyrano de Bergerac, The Trespassers, Rice Boy and Zastrozzi. In past seasons, Siobhán has assisted at both the Festival Theatre and the Avon Theatre. She also has an associate lighting design credit for Anne and Gilbert: The Musical, produced by Campbell Webster Entertainment in Summerside, P.E.I. Recent lighting design credits include Les Belles-Soeurs and The Killing Game (Randolph Academy); Tirtha and Pillar, performed in Kolkatta, India (Anandam Performance Group); Bluebeard (GromKat Productions Ltd.); Fat Pig (Geek Girl Productions); Dandi, Peacock, Triple Concerto and Angikam at the DANse/ce Kapital Festival in Ottawa (Anandam Performance Group); Disciples (DMT Productions); Frida and Herself, performed both in Toronto and at the New York Fringe Festival (Anandam Performance Group); Ragtime (City Centre Musical Productions); Anowa (AfriCAN Theatre Ensemble); and King Lear (Toronto Art Theatre). Siobhán also worked on Nuit Blanche 2008, designing the lighting score for Brendan Fernandes’s installation Future (…---…) Perfect. sanjay talwar – actor Second season: Lennox in Macbeth, Trebonius/Lucilius in Julius Caesar and Uncle in Rice Boy. Stratford credits: Orsino (Twelfth Night), Seacoal (Much Ado About Nothing), Volscian Lieutenant (Coriolanus). Other credits: Dushyanta in Shakuntala (Pleiades/ World Stage); Bird Brain in Bird Brain (LKTYP) in English and ASL; Kamal in Bombay Black (Cahoots/Arts Club); El-Fayoumy in The Last Days of Judas Iscariot (Birdland); Valentine in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Claudio/Pompey in Measure for Measure, Marcus Andronicus in Titus Andronicus, director of The Merchant of Venice and artistic director for five seasons (Shakespeare in the Rough); Escalus in Romeo and Juliet, Theseus in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Sir Andrew Aguecheek in Twelfth Night (Dream in High Park); and Nabil in Helen’s Necklace (Tarragon/Pi Theatre; Jessie for Best Supporting Actor). Film and TV credits include Puck Hogs, The Border, Flashpoint, Guns, Supernatural and Murder Unveiled/A Love Story. Sanjay is originally from Halifax, and is a graduate of Dalhousie University’s theatre program. 7
Page 1 and 2: Studio Theatre AuguST 11 To oCTobeR
Page 3 and 4: A Cosmos of Creativity Shakespeare
Page 5 and 6: attraction whose eyes bulged outwar
Page 7: Cast List In Canada: Father Tommy,
Page 11 and 12: A Salute to Our Donors We extend he
Page 13 and 14: Annual Donors (Reflects gifts made
Page 15 and 16: Annual Donors Dr. & Mrs. Greg Johns
Page 17 and 18: RECOGNIZES THE OUTSTANDING ARTISTIC
Page 20: 09 Season Festival Theatre Macbeth

Rice Boy Cover.indd - Stratford Festival

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