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CLAIRE
ADAMS (Assistant Stage Manager) – Claire is pleased to be back at
Theatre Passe Muraille, having performed ASM duties for Babes on Bay Street and Sir
John, Eh! last season. Claire recently returned from British Columbia where she stage
managed A Streetcar Named Desire, and has just completed The King and I
at Theatre Aquarius in Hamilton. Claire has worked for many theatres, including Factory
Theatre, Showboat Festival, Theatre NorthWest, Tarragon Theatre, Persephone Theatre,
Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in England and Theatre du Masquet in Paris, France.
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VIKKI ANDERSON (Set Designer) – Since arriving in Toronto five years ago, Vikki has been active in the city’s theatre community as a designer, producer and director. Recent credits include Shaking the Foundations and Howl (Buddies in Bad Times Theatre), Hello...Hello (Pochsy Productions), Cheri (Tarragon Theatre), Down Here on Earth (Autumn Leaf) and Medea (Golden Fleece Productions - Dora Award nomination). Last year, Vikki produced, directed and designed Coyote Ugly for her own company, DVxT Theatre. Coyote Ugly received two Dora Mavor Moore Awards and was nominated for five Doras. Her upcoming projects include Trousseau, True Nature (Urge Collective) and Ibsen’s masterpiece, The Doll House, adapted by John Murrell for DVxT Theatre Company.
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BRUCE
BEATON (David) is most pleased to be making his Theatre Passe Muraille debut
with The Yoko Ono Project, having originated the role in workshops with Nightwood
Theatre and Loud Mouth Asian Babes. Past work includes Saturn Devouring His Son (Factory
Theatre), The Death of the Hired Man (Blyth Festival), Impassioned Embraces (Toronto
Fringe). Bruce has worked with Die in Debt, Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, Nightswimming,
Mercury Theatre and Necessary Angel. Film and TV credits include Due South, FX, Twitch
City, Ice (NBC), Killing Moon and Vanished Without a Trace (CBS).
You’ll be seeing Bruce again at Theatre Passe Muraille in May 2000 in The
Rediscovery of Sex.
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BONNIE BEECHER (Lighting Designer) has designed for numerous Canadian companies and has received five Dora nominations and one Dora Award. Recent credits include La Traviata (Canadian Opera Company), The Weight of Absence (National Ballet of Canada), Pride and Prejudice (Stratford Festival), The Memory of Water and Good Bones (Tarragon Theatre), The Attic, the Pearls and Three Fine Girls (Vancouver Playhouse), and Shaking the Foundations (Buddies in Bad Times Theatre). Bonnie has also designed for the Shaw Festival, Canadian Stage, the National Arts Centre, Factory Theatre, Autumn Leaf Performance, Desrosiers Dance Theatre, Neptune Theatre, Crows, Alberta Theatre Projects, Nightwood Theatre and Tapestry Music. Upcoming productions include One Hundred Words for Snow for the National Ballet of Canada, The Conjuror Suite at the Royal Ontario Museum, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the University of Toronto Opera School. Bonnie’s greatest joy is her baby son Jacob, who constantly gives her perspective.
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CHRIS CLIFFORD (Media
Designer) is a multimedia artist who has designed video performance and
installations, lighting, sets and staging for VideoCabaret, the Shaw Festival, Necessary
Angel, Civilized Theatre, Kensington Carnival, Nam June Paik, Nancy Peterson, Randy &
Berenicci, and film productions. Recent work includes Princess of the Stars with R.
Murray Schafer, The Life and Times of Brian Mulroney with VideoCabaret, Dream a
Little Dream with Denny Doherty and Paul Ledoux at Neptune, and The Garden of the
Dead with Kensington Carnival in Little Norway Park. He grew up with the Beatles
– and the Rolling Stones, the Kinks and the Animals, Family, Fairport Convention, and
the London art scene of the early seventies. Lucky to come to Canada for some sanity!
Traumatized by the assassination of Lennon, Chris was in New York for the wake in December
1980. Much water has flowed under the bridges since then, still swimming! Landed on this
Yoko island in the stream, very pleased to be part of this team with the joy of handling
the masses of imagery of those times – their times – our times – what could
have been?
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| MARION
de VRIES (Co-Director) is delighted to be working on The Yoko Ono Project,
and to be collaborating with Jean Yoon again. Selected directing credits: Dreaming Elsewhere
by Charles Picco (Rhubarb! Festival, Buddies in Bad Times Theatre); Wilbur County
Blues by Andrew Moodie (Blyth Festival); Sliding for Home & Borders by Jean
Yoon (Loud Mouth Asian Babes/Toronto Fringe); Noran Bang: The Yellow Room by M.J.
Kang (3D Festival, Cahoots Theatre Projects/Theatre Passe Muraille). Artistic Director of
Cahoots Theatre Projects 94/95 – 96/97. Playwrighting credits: big face (Wild
Pig Theatre in association with Nightwood Theatre, Chalmers Award finalist); Jumping
Mouse, co-written with Columpa C. Bobb, (Young People’s Theatre, Dora nomination
for TYA Outstanding Production). Marion cherishes her Harold Award (thank you Jean and all
my Harold ancestors), but not more than she cherishes her 2½-year-old son, Luke. Thanks
to all my family and friends.
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DENISE FUJIWARA (Helen)
is a choreographer, dancer, actor and teacher. In 1994, acclaimed Butoh
choreographer, Natsu Nakajima, created Sumida River especially for her,
which premiered at the Canada Dance Festival and toured to Montreal, Toronto, Halifax and
Washington D.C. In 1997, her fourth concert of solo works, Elle Laments, received
its world premiere at Toronto’s duMaurier Centre and toured to the Canada Dance
Festival, Vancouver and St. John’s. Walls, a television
program on her life and choreography, won the 1995 Gemini Award for Best Performing
Arts Program in Canada. Her choreography for the theatre includes the award-winning Naomi’s
Road for Young People’s Theatre, Nightwood Theatre’s Charming and Rose:
True Love, Tapestry Music Theatre’s Colours in the Storm, and Theatre
Direct’s Girl Who Loved Her Horses. While she has had a number of
acting roles in film and television, The Yoko Ono Project is her stage acting
debut.
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TANYA GREVE (Stage Manager) – Tanya is pleased as punch to be stage managing her first show at Theatre Passe Muraille. Previous stage management credits include A Short History of Night and The Glace Bay Miners’ Museum at the Factory Theatre, five seasons at the Blyth Festival (most recently Big Box and When the Reaper Calls), three seasons with Young People’s Theatre (most recently assistant stage manager on The Nutmeg Princess and Treasure Island) and various short stints all over the city (favourites include Standing Female Nude at the Factory Studio Café and Born in the Grave with Crow’s Theatre).
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M.J. KANG (Jo) is a playwright and actor. She originated the
roles of Tara and Rachel in the Dora Award-winning production of The Other Side of the
Closet, as well as Gyung-June in the Dora Award-nominated play Noran Bang: The
Yellow Room, which she also wrote and is published by Canada Playwrights Press.
Television and film credits include D.C., The City, Earth: Final Conflict,
P.C.U., T.C. 2000, and series regular on Riverdale. Her plays include Blessings
(Tarragon Theatre), Hee Hee: Tales From The White Diamond Mountain (Blyth
Festival), Simply Fred (Skylark Productions) and Questioning Condoms (Rhubarb!
Festival.) She has been playwright-in-residence at Nightwood Theatre and Cahoots
Theatre Projects, and a member of Theatre Passe Muraille’s Playwrights Group, Banff
Playwrights Colony, and Tarragon’s Playwrights Unit. She is currently working
on Dreams of Blonde & Blue to be workshopped at Cahoots in 2000.
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| JOANNE
LeBLANC (Costume Designer) has spent 10 years in the world of wardrobe for
theatre and film. Selected theatre credits include stints as Head of Wardrobe for Tarragon
Theatre (3 seasons) and Théatre Français; Design Assistant for Mrs. Warren’s
Profession (Honoria Project), Artaud and His Doubles: Prelude – Can’t (DNA
Theatre), Born in the Grave (Crow’s Theatre), Colours in the Storm
(Tapestry Music Theatre); and Costume Assistant for the Canadian Opera Company (3
seasons). Film credits as Cutter/Seamstress include Piano Man’s Daughter, Dear
America, Goosebumps, Einstein: Light to the Power of Two, and Dudley the Dragon,
as well as Design Assistant for Shepherd. Recent motherhood resulted in a two-year
hiatus from theatre for Joanne, so she is especially looking forward to her debut as
Costume Designer with The Yoko Ono Project.
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LEE PUI MING (Composer & Singer/Yoko) is a pianist/composer
and one of the most compelling improvisers on the North American new music scene today.
Trained in the European classical tradition, this highly original artist creates a fresh
and uniquely imaginative musical language, a blend that incorporates jazz, Chinese
traditional music, new concert music and experimental improvisation. She has appeared in
jazz and new music festivals in Canada, the U.S. and Europe. Pui Ming’s prolific
output extends to contemporary music for traditional Chinese instruments. Much of this
body of work appears in the repertoire of the Lee Pui Ming Ensemble (LPME). LPME is a
sextet consisting of piano, percussion and a quartet of Chinese instruments. Nine-Fold
Heart (Pochee Records, 1994), LPME’s first CD, received a Juno nomination for
Best Global Recording. Since then, the ensemble has toured Canada and Asia. Other
recordings include Taklamakan (Pochee, 1999), Strange Beauty (Dorian
Recordings, 1994) and Ming (Pochee, 1991).
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KEIRA LOUGHRAN (Tammy) – Since graduating from the University of Alberta Drama Program, Keira has appeared in theatres across Canada, working with such companies as Alberta Theatre Projects, Canadian Stage and Young People’s Theatre. She appeared in the Loud Mouth Asian Babes’ workshop presentation of The Kyopo Trilogy at Under the Umbrella, Theatre Centre, 1997. She last appeared at Theatre Passe Muraille in 1837: The Farmers’ Revolt. Favourite roles include Elizabeth Barry in The Libertine (Equity Showcase) and Nancy in Oliver Twist (YPT). After Yoko, she will be playing the title role in Alice at Young People’s Theatre.
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| JONATHAN ROOKE
(Sound Design) - Jonathan’s recent sound design credits include Suburban
Motel and Oui at Factory Theatre, Wilbur County Blues at the Blyth
Festival and The Drawer Boy at Theatre Passe Muraille. Jonathan is also the
Technical Director for Theatre Passe Muraille.
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GLENN MARC SILOT (Gus) is a classically trained actor working in theatre, film and television. Since graduating from the George Brown Theatre School, Glenn Marc has played principal television roles in Peacekeepers (CBC), Real Kids, Real Adventures (Global) and D.C. His feature film credits include Dragon City, Wicked World, Boondock Saints with Willem Dafoe, and American Psycho. Glenn Marc has worked for Young People’s Theatre, Shakespeare in Action, Martha’s Vineyard Theatre and Festival Stage. Favourite theatre roles include Barnaby Tucker in The Matchmaker; Tom Ryan in St. Nicholas Hotel; Romeo in Romeo and Juliet; Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream; and Austin in True West. Glenn Marc is pleased to make his Theatre Passe Muraille/Loud Mouth Asian Babes debut in The Yoko Ono Project.
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ERYN DACE TRUDELL
(Choreographer) began her training in jazz, was introduced to modern dance at
Claude Watson School for the Arts and received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from The Juilliard
School in New York. In 1993, Eryn founded Damn Straight rehearsal and performance space
with stage manager/lighting designer Sharon DiGenova. Damn Straight provided Toronto
artists of all disciplines a haven in which to present and hone their craft. For five
years, Damn Straight presented Forward Motions, a series of performances including
companies from Vancouver and Montreal, as well as at The Estrogen Festival and Downtown
Dance Festival. Through Damn Straight, Eryn developed her own choreographic works
including Jane’s X, Spy, Fish Stew, Where’s Front? Forced Horn, Morgaine, The
High Queen’s Quartet, The Mistress of Magic Sextet, Elimination of Lateral Violence, and
My Private Venus. Eryn’s work has been showcased at a wide range of venues
including Danceworks, SpringRites, Summerworks, Dancing on the Edge, and The
Canada Dance Festival and at the DIA Art Foundation and Kitchen in New
York. She is a veteran of Strange Sisters, 8:08, Dances for a Small Stage, and (f)IDA.
Eryn’s unique style is highly valued in the Toronto theatre community. Credits
include: The Destruction of Eve, the original Lord of the Flies, NoNoMiya, The
Anxiety of Immortality, That Camille Claudel Feeling, Quartet and Horse.
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| VALERIE SING TURNER (Co-Producer) is an actor, singer, and
musician with a B.Mus from the University of Victoria. With extensive training in dance,
musical theatre and acting, Valerie is now extending her interest into producing with The
Yoko Ono Project, having played the fourth and now defunct Asian woman in the 1996
workshop version of the project. Other Toronto stage credits include Journey to the
West (Canasian Artists Group) and Happy End (Alumnae Theatre), while film/TV
credits include La Femme Nikita, Time Exposure, Sqewed and a supporting lead
in the independent feature, Jerry’s Day. For her producing debut, Valerie
brings a wealth of administrative experience from her nine years in magazine publishing,
and is currently a producing associate with Theatre Passe Muraille on a grant funded by
Theatre Ontario. Valerie has been a driving force in Loud Mouth Asian Babes since 1998.
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JEAN YOON (Playwright/ Co-Director) Jean was Assistant Director to Edward Roy on U.F.O.R.E.X (Theatre Direct) and dramaturged and directed the workshops of Darren O’Donnell’s White Mice (Theatre Centre/Mammalian Diving Reflex), Darrell Dennis’ The Trickster of Third Avenue East (Native Earth), as well as a workshop of her own work The Kyopo Trilogy (Loud Mouth Asian Babes). She is thrilled to have such a strong and talented team of artists collaborating with her, celebrating Yoko Ono, and putting Asian Babes right downstage where they belong. |