THE WOMEN’S ROOM IN EDNA’S 2019

Jennifer Cornish: A persistent member of Waterloo region’s performing arts community, Jennifer is an actor/producer well-known for her award-winning performance of a feisty, 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 2013, Critic’s Pick: Hamilton Fringe 2013.) Familiar onstage and on camera, Jennifer is recipient of a Region of Waterloo Arts Award (Performing Arts). Previous work with Pat the Dog (as actor for script development): We Ran Wild (Deanna Kruger), Hope Op (Kristin Shepherd), Silverfish (Heather Davies), The Gods and Calvin Brewer (Jessica Anderson).

Taylor Graham is a theatre artist and educator living in Cambridge, Ontario. She has worked in various capacities with esteemed artistic companies and educational institutions as Canadian Stage, the Playwrights Guild of Canada, Tapestry New Opera Works, Humber College, Artscape, Rogers Television, among others. Taylor is the proud recipient of the George Ryga Award for Excellent in Playwrighting from York University, celebrated playwright Judith Thompson named Taylor as the “up and coming playwright to watch” in the Playwrights Guild of Canada’s The Playwright Applause campaign, and her opera The Virgin Charlie was nominated for a Dora Award for best new opera / musical. Currently, she is a PhD student at the University of Guelph, an English professor at Sheridan College, and an artistic associate at Pat the Dog Theatre Creation. For more information please visit taylormariegraham.com.

Lisa Justine Hood: By day, Lisa is a mild-mannered Drama and English high school teacher in Stratford. By night, she is a Master’s student at the University of Guelph and community theatre enthusiast, with a soft spot for the spot light. Lisa began her theatre story at the Theatre and Drama Studies program at U of T and moved into theatre admin after graduation, working at The Livery Theatre and the Blyth Festival before taking up teaching. Lisa is painfully excited to be working with such an amazing group of women and hopes that their talent and wisdom helps to carry her into the next chapter of her theatre tale.

Viktorija Kovac is a theatre director/creator and producer. Viktorija is a unique mix of Serbian, Slovakian, German, Greek and Romanian, who was born in Belgrade, Serbia (Former Yugoslavia) and immigrated to Canada with her parents in 1994. She holds a Joint Honors Degree in Drama and Speech Communication from the University of Waterloo, and has trained in theatre direction with Richard Rose (Tarragon Theatre) and Joel Greenberg (Studio 180). In 2015, Viktorija founded Cosmic Fishing Theatre, an independent producing company, in pursuit of exciting, relevant, and evocative performance. Based in the Waterloo Region, Cosmic Fishing (a metaphor for intuition) works with emerging and established theatre artists, connected to the region, to create professional theatre for everyone to enjoy. To date, as an independent producer Viktorija has presented two projects: an adaptation of King Lear, experimenting with puppetry and its relationship to performance, and The B Party, which explores the semiotics of Barbie, in an auto-ethnographic performance that takes the audience on a journey inside the consumerist culture sold to girls and women. Recently, Viktorija was the inaugural Artist-in-Residence at The Registry Theatre, for the 2017/2018 season.

Deanna Kruger lives and writes in Guelph, Ontario. She received second prize in the 2018 Playwrights Guild of Canada’s RBC Emerging Playwright Award for The Sword-Bearers. Deanna is an alumnus of two playwright units: Pat the Dog Theatre Creation/Sonderlust’s The Women’s Room (2017-18) and Nightwood Theatre’s Write from the Hip (2016-17). Her plays have been staged in Guelph, Toronto, and Vancouver. Most recently, Deanna’s play We Ran Wild had a staged reading as part of Pat the Dog’s Heels on a Diving Board women’s creator seriesDeanna holds a BA and MA in English Literature from the University of Guelph. Deanna is the recipient of both an Ontario Arts Council and Canada Council Creator in Residence award with Pat the Dog Theatre Creation for her playwriting.

Laureen Kuhl spent most of her childhood forcing unsuspecting dinner guests to conquer their fear of public speaking. If you were invited to her house for dinner, you would be waving a sword and riding a unicorn by dessert. Today, Laureen is still a passionate storyteller. A multi-talented writer, director and performer her produced works have run the gambit from musicals like, “Heart of Gold,” “Ye Olde Fashioned Christmas Variety Showe,” “Pirates of Penzance: Adapted,” to drama, “The Pond,” “The Treasure Chest,” to sketch and improv comedy as part of “The Possibilities.” Laureen’s highlights include having her comedy short “First Vacation” chosen for ABC’s Talent Showcase, and working on book, lyrics, music and direction for “Heart of Gold,” a musical commissioned by the Timmins Symphony, funded by Ontario Arts Council and one of the major draws for the City of Timmins 100th Anniversary. She is currently a recipient of an OAC Recommender Grant through Pat the Dog Theatre for her work with Maureen Reese on a new musical “I Once Was Lost.” She is looking forward to a development workshop of the musical this spring.

Kelly McIntosh has worked in Canada and abroad as an actor, playwright and producer of theatre. She has taught acting and playwrighting at Ryerson University and Humber College. Kelly co-wrote and acted in several popular plays for The Blyth Festival inspired by historical events: Death of a Hired Man, The Outdoor Donnellys and Hippie, directed by theatre luminary Paul Thompson. Her solo work depicting the murder of Bridget Donnelly has been performed numerous times and won her the KM Hunter award for having an impact in theatre. Kelly has a long association with the Caravan Farm Theatre, an outdoor equestrian theatre in British Columbia. Her several roles have included actor, playwright, director, assistant teamster and Interim Artistic Director. For the Royal Shakespeare Company, Kelly originated the role of Helen of Troy in the premiere production of Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad. Kelly has acted at the Grand Theatre, Canadian Stage, Vancouver Playhouse, Persephone Theatre, Theatre By the Bay, Factory Theatre, Theatre Passe Muraille, and the National Arts Centre. She is the author of Finding Ivy, a CBC radio documentary that follwed her writing process while she researched women who work in the field of auctioneering. Kelly is co-creator of the play Ladies of the CNR, and is co-writing In the Wake of Wettlaufer with Blyth Artistic Director Gil Garrat, to be premiered in 2019 in Blyth. Kelly is a graduate of Ryerson Theatre School.

Lisa O’Connell is the founding Artistic Director of Pat the Dog Theatre Creation + PlaySmelter, Northern ON’s festival of New Works by Northern ON theatre creators.  A dramaturg and fierce advocate for regional theatre creators, O’Connell has dramaturged work that has received or been nominated for the RBC Tarragon Playwright Award, the Carol Bolt Award, Governor-General’s Award (Drama), RBC Emerging Directors Award, among others. Produced work has been presented at Magnetic North Theatre Festival, SummerWorks, Canadian Stage, Tarragon, MT Space, Sudbury Theatre Centre, Theatre Aquarius, The Grand Theatre, among others. She is the recipient of a Special Jury Award and the Gowlings Literary Award from Arts Awards Waterloo and has delivered the closing Keynote address at the Canadian Association of Theatre Researchers Conference. O’Connell has been published in Canadian Theatre Review, The Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail, Chatelaine, among others. She divides her time between her artistic homes in Waterloo, ON and Sudbury, ON with her partner Mark Walton.