Hope OP by Kristin Shepherd

An comedy about yoga, crime and women’s anger.

Directed by Heather Davies
Dramaturgy by Lisa O’Connell

June – Kelly McIntosh
Di – Stacy Smith
Nervy – Baptiste Neis
Mere – Jennifer Cornish

Kristin Shepherd

Kristin Shepherd is a playwright, actor, and filmmaker from North Bay, ON. Hope Op, a comedy about women and hope, was first produced in community theatre in North Bay. Rewrites are ongoing. Kristin is interested in exploring love in difficult circumstances and with difficult people. She finds particular joy in doing something about the absurd lack of stories by women and about real women on stage.

Heather Davies

Heather is a theatre director, writer, performer, and arts educator. She has directed at theatres across Canada, the UK and Germany. She is the Artistic Director of the RYGA Arts Festival in Summerland, BC, and this past summer, Heather’s adaptation, Judith: Memories of a Lady Pig Farmer, premiered at the Blyth Festival!

Kelly McIntosh

 Kelly has worked as an actor, playwright and producer of theatre across the country: The National Arts Centre, The Blyth Festival, Caravan Farm Theatre, Persephone Theatre, Vancouver Playhouse, The Grand Theatre, Canadian Stage Company, YPT, Theatre Passe Muraille, Factory Theatre, Roseneath Theatre, and Buddies in Bad Times. Kelly appeared in the premiere of Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad at the Royal Shakespeare Company. She has taught at George Brown and Ryerson Theatre School. She is a recipient of the KM Hunter Award for having an impact in theatre, and is member of the Ladies of the CNR Collective.

Stacy Smith

Stacy Smith is a Genie nominated performer and arts educator. Appearing onstage with Drayton Entertainment, Theatre Aquarius, Neptune Theatre, Eastern Front, Mulgrave Road, Ships Company, TNB, Atlantic Theatre Festival, Luna Sea and Off The Leash. She also has worked extensively in television and film, with recurring roles in “Rookie Blue” as Zoe Shaw and “Sex & Violence”. Selected credits include Designated Survivor, Murdoch Mysteries, The Detail, Sebastian, Flight of The Butterflies, Blackbird, Jessie Stone, Robson Arms, Relative Chaos, Blessed Stranger, Single Mom, Marion Bridge, Wake, Running Into Edna and New Waterford Girl. Currently Stacy teaches at Theatre Aquarius Theatre School and Dimensions in Dance in Kitchener.

Baptiste Neis

A lover of collaborative process Baptiste is enjoying working with writers and dramaturges on new scripts this fall.  Baptiste is currently working on Ladies of the CNR, with Stacy Smith, Heather Davies and Kelly MacIntosh, a play about the CNR locomotive repair shop in Stratford, circa WW2.  She is also enjoying some design work for Tiny Room’s upcoming production of 4th Graders.  Baptiste is developing a dance film with Stand Up Dance, performing in White Rooster’s Kate Crackerberry, for which she created the puppets, and collaborating with David Lane of the Old Trout Puppet Workshop on an adaptation.  In 2013, she co-founded the Clever Crones to create puppet theatre, slowly, and has been working with the Newfoundland Puppet Collective, facilitating community engaged lantern puppet productions.

Baptiste has a BFA from Concordia University. She has performed with companies that include C2C Theatre, Artistic Fraud, Caravan Stage Barge and Rising Tide.  She appears in short films, Rescue Wife, Bark and Swallowed, and in features Love and Savagery, Above and Beyond and The Untold Story.  Baptiste produced and directed New Media, Television and Film independently and with Pope Productions Ltd. Baptiste has served as vice chair of RCA, President of the Nickel Independent Film Festival and a founding Director of Perchance Theatre.

Jennifer Cornish

A persistent member of the region’s arts community, Jennifer is well-known for her feisty performance of a fast-talking Irish street drinker in the one-woman show, Myra’s Story by Brian Foster (Best Tragedy – United Solo Festival New York City 2016, Best Production – London Fringe Festival 2013, Critic’s Pick – Hamilton Fringe Festival 2013.) Familiar onstage and on camera, Jennifer is recipient of a Region of Waterloo Arts Award (Performing Arts 2011).

Recent stage roles include:  Shirley Valentine (by Willy Russell, produced by 4th Wall Productions), Debra in Kimberly Akimbo (David Lindsay-Abaire), Edith in Pearl Gidley (Gary Kirkham, Lost & Found Theatre), Liz in Dine Her (Bruce Hunter, RealSpace Theatre), Edna in Nowhere Ontario (Kathleen Cleland-Moyer, Backyard Theatre), Mrs. Lintott in History Boys (Alan Bennett, Growing In The Arts), Louise in Hollywood Arms (Carol Burnett & Carrie Hamilton, Elmira Theatre Co), Jeri Neal in Dixie Swim Club (Jones, Hope & Wooten), Alexa in As Bees in Honey Drown (Douglas Carter Beane) , Mona in Queen Milli of Galt (Gary Kirkham, Cambridge Community Players), and Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (Edward Albee, KWLT).