MEET THE INSTRUCTORS

back to PlayWorks Ink 2008

Judith Thompson

Featured Guest JUDITH THOMPSON
Judith Thompson is a playwright, screenwriter, actor, director and educator. She has twice been awarded the Governor General’s Award for Drama and is the recipient of numerous other awards; most recently the 2007 Walter Carsen Prize for Excellence in the Performing Arts and the 2008 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. In 2005 she was named an officer of the Order of Canada for outstanding contributions in writing and the arts. Judith’s plays include The Crackwalker, White Biting Dog, I Am Yours, Lion in the Streets, Sled, Habitat, Capture Me, and Palace of the End. She lives in Toronto with her husband and five children, and teaches acting and playwriting at the University of Guelph.
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Peter Balkwill Peter Balkwill
Peter Balkwill is a co-Artistic Director and Director of Workshops at the Old Trout Puppet Workshop in Calgary. He holds an MFA in Acting from the University of Washington and a BFA in Theatre from the University of Victoria. During his studies Peter had extensive exposure to the unique methods of Tadashi Suzuki, Joan Skinner and Kaz Piesiwaski. He has taught as Head of Movement at the University of Victoria and facilitated workshops with companies across Canada and the U.S., including the Banff Center, National Theatre School of Canada, Toronto School of Puppetry, Brown University and the RCA Theatre Company.
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Mark Bellamy

Mark Bellamy
Mark Bellamy is an award-winning director and choreographer who has worked across Canada and the U.S. He has received Betty Mitchell Awards for Outstanding Choreography of Urinetown: the Musical (Ground Zero Theatre/Hit & Myth Productions), Rough Crossing (Theatre Calgary), and Falsettos (Alberta Theatre Projects). In 2006 he was awarded the Greg Bond Memorial Award for outstanding contribution to musical theatre in Calgary. Mark is currently Artistic Director of Vertigo Theatre in Calgary.
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Lindsay Burns

Lindsay Burns
Lindsay Burns is a playwright and performer living in Calgary. A graduate of the University of Alberta’s BFA Acting program, Lindsay has been a professional actress since 1988. She has written and performed several one-woman shows including Naming Names (One Yellow Rabbit’s High Performance Rodeo, FemFest); Dough: The Politics of Martha Stewart (Theatre Junction’s Random Acts Festival, Ground Zero Theatre); and The Vajayjay Monologues (Urban Curvz Theatre, Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival, New York International Fringe Festival).
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Eva Cairns

Eva Cairns
Eva Cairns is an Edmonton-based arts administrator and Managing Producer for Catalyst Theatre. Eva spent four years as the tour coordinator for Judith Marcuse Dance Company in Vancouver before moving to Montreal for five years where she was responsible for touring operations and international market development for O Vertigo Danse. From 1993 to 1998 she worked for Harbourfront Centre in Toronto where she was the Associate Coordinator of Today’s Japan and the Administrator for Performing Arts. Eva joined Edmonton’s Shadow Theatre in 2001 as the company’s first General Manager and was the Edmonton Associate for the 2004 Magnetic North Theatre Festival.
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Karen Johnson-Diamond

Karen Johnson-Diamond
Karen Johnson-Diamond has performed with many Alberta theatre companies including Theatre Junction, Vertigo Theatre, Quest Theatre, Ghost River Theatre, Theatre Calgary, Alberta Theatre Projects, Lunchbox Theatre, Theatre Network, and Ground Zero Theatre. Karen has been a professional improviser for the past 11 years and co-produces the improvised soap opera Dirty Laundry. As well as teaching at Artstrek, she has been an instructor with Quest Theatre’s Artist in Residency program for 12 years. Karen lives in Calgary with her husband Kevin and son Griffin.
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David Ley

David Ley
David Ley is a voice, speech, dialect, and text specialist. This summer he was back for his tenth season as a voice coach at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. He works regularly as a voice and dialect coach for theatres in Edmonton and has twenty-five years experience as both an actor and acting teacher. This fall he will be appearing as George in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf for Studio Theatre and as Dr. Walker in the feature film Passchendaele. David is an Associate Professor and Coordinator of the BFA Acting program at the University of Alberta.
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Hannah Moscovitch

Hannah Moscovitch
Hannah Moscovitch is a Toronto-based playwright and graduate of the National Theatre School of Canada. Her writing for the stage includes Essay, The Russian Play, USSR, Mexico City and East of Berlin. Hannah’s plays have been produced by Factory Theatre, Magnetic North Theatre Festival, and Tarragon Theatre, where she is playwright-in-residence. Urban Curvz Theatre is producing a double-bill of Essay and The Russian Play in the spring, and East of Berlin is currently running at Alberta Theatre Projects. Hannah has been commissioned to create new works by Prairie Theatre Exchange, Volcano Theatre, The Great Canadian Theatre Company, 2b theatre company and Company Theatre Crisis.

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Mieko Ouchi

Mieko Ouchi
Mieko Ouchi is an Edmonton-based actor, writer, and director who works in both theatre and film/TV. Her plays The Red Priest (Eight Ways To Say Goodbye) and The Blue Light have been produced across the country and were shortlisted for the 4 Play Series at The Old Vic, the Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama, and the City of Edmonton Book Prize, winning the Canadian Authors Association Carol Bolt Award for Drama. Her films have played over 30 festivals and aired internationally. Mieko is a founder and Artistic Co-Director of Concrete Theatre, an Edmonton-based TYA company. Currently she can be seen as Nori Sato in the Global TV series The Guard.
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Gordon Pengilly Gordon Pengilly
Gordon Pengilly has written more than fifty plays for television, film, radio and stage, and is one of the most prolific radio dramatists in Canada. In 1989 CBC selected The Ballad of an Existential Cowboy as one of its Best-of-Decade for radio drama. In the Middle of Town Stands the Dreamland was nominated for a Peabody Award in 1993 and was rebroadcast in Australia. His 13-part mystery series Bailey’s Way was aired in 1999-2000 and again in 2001 on XM-Satellite Radio out of Washington, DC. Seeing in the Dark received the BBC International Radio Drama Prize and was broadcast on the World Service in 2007.
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Ian Prinsloo Ian Prinsloo
Ian Prinsloo was the Artistic Director for Theatre Calgary from 1997 to 2005. Directing credits include Counsellor-At-Law (Betty Award for Outstanding Direction), Death of a Salesman, Holiday, The Glass Menagerie, Private Lives (Theatre Calgary), My Name is Rachel Corrie (Sage Theatre), Harvest (Blyth Festival Theatre), Pervert, Looking After Eden (Ground Zero Theatre), Patience (Dora Award for Outstanding Direction), The Retreat (Tarragon Theatre), Uncle Vanya and Waterloo (Shaw Festival). Ian lives in Calgary with his wife Kanchan, two children Nisha and Kyle, and their dog Arrow. He is currently pursuing his MFA in Theatre Studies at the University of Calgary.
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Mariette Sluyter Mariette Sluyter
Mariette Sluyter is the founding director of The Foundation Lab and past Artistic Director of both All Nations Theatre and Spinstergirl Productions. A Calgary theatre professional for over 20 years, her focus within the last decade has been on culling the voices in disenfranchised communities so that they can be heard by the mainstream, including work with the Seniors Action Group, Jewish Family Services and Mennonite Centre for Newcomers. Most recently, she facilitated the landmark Forum Theatre production of Sn@p at the 2008 Calgary International Children’s Festival, examining the root of violence and aggression in our schools.
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Glenda Stirling Glenda Stirling
Glenda Stirling is a Calgary-based freelance director, playwright, choreographer and movement instructor at Mount Royal College. Directing credits include Rabbit Hole, Vincent in Brixton, Get Away (Alberta Theatre Projects), Music for Contortionist (Sage Theatre), Wait Until Dark (Vertigo Theatre), Blood Relations (Mount Royal College), Lillibet (Ship’s Company Theatre), Cheek to Cheek (Lunchbox Theatre), The Mercy Seat (Ground Zero Theatre) and New Canadian Kid (Quest Theatre). In 2003 Glenda participated in the Shaw Festival’s Emerging Directors Program, where she directed Ways and Means, and returned to Shaw the following year to assistant direct and choreograph Floyd Collins.
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Laryssa Yanchak Laryssa Yanchak
Laryssa Yanchak is a certified instructor with Fight Directors Canada. She teaches workshops across Canada for high school and university students, and film and theatre performers. Laryssa has directed fights for Alberta Ballet, Alberta Theatre Projects (Betty Mitchell Award for Treasure Island), Vertigo Theatre, Urban Curvz Theatre, Sage Theatre (Betty Mitchell Nomination for Trainspotting), University of Calgary, University of Lethbridge, and Keyano College. In the upcoming year she will be teaching stage combat courses at both Playhouse North School of Theatre and Mount Royal College.
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Adrian Young

Adrian Young
Adrian Young is a member of both CAEA and ACTRA, and is best known as a Fight Director, Flying Director and Stunt Coordinator for theatre and film. Some of his most recent theatre credits include Oliver Twist, Peter Pan (Alberta Theatre Projects), Duck Duck Bang (Firefly Theatre), A Party to Murder, Innocent Blood (Vertigo Theatre), Trainspotting (Betty Mitchell Nomination, Sage Theatre), St. Joan, Humble Boy (Theatre Calgary), The Forbidden Phoenix (Citadel Theatre), Cow-boy Poétré and Les Romantriques (L’UniThéâtre).