National Playwrights Retreat

Vicki Stroich is a Calgary based dramaturg, facilitator, non-profit leader and community builder. Designing and hosting creative spaces and fostering collaboration are Vicki’s great passions. These days, Vicki spends her days as Engagement Director for Alberta Ecotrust, an organization that supports environmental non-profits. Previously Stroich worked with Alberta Theatre Projects for over 16 years, serving as the company’s Executive Director for over 4 years. She has dramaturged over 45 new plays with ATP and companies across Canada, including Caravan Farm Theatre, as well as independent playwrights and devisers. In 2018 she launched the National Playwrights Retreat with the Caravan Farm Theatre in Armstrong, BC. She is a former program director for the Playwrights Colony at The Banff Centre, a Past President of Literary Manager and Dramaturgs of the Americas and a past Treasurer of Professional Association of Canadian Theatres. She has a BFA Drama from The University of Calgary and an Extension Certificate in Social Innovation and Changemaking from Mount Royal University. Vicki has received a Betty Mitchell Award for Outstanding Achievement for her work on new plays and is an Avenue Magazine Top 40 Under 40 Alumni.

Rachel Aberle is a Vancouver based playwright, performer, director, and the Associate Artistic Director of Green Thumb Theatre. As a performer Rachel has appeared on stages across Canada, and productions of her scripts Still/Falling and The Code have been touring with Green Thumb across North America since 2015 and 2018 respectively. Both plays were nominated for Jessie Richardson Theatre Awards for Outstanding Original Script, and The Code received the Sydney J. Risk Prize for Outstanding Original Play by an Emerging Playwright. Rachel is a graduate of Studio 58.

Jennifer Brewin is a Canadian theatre artist specializing in new work.  She co-authored a number of collective creations including The Public Servant, The Attic The Pearls and 3 Fine Girls  and The Election,  for Common Boots Theatre, and The Frost Fairwith Peter Hinton for the National Arts Centre and for the Caravan Farm Theatre she wrote two outdoor winter productions, A Night in the Woods and The Star Child.  She has directed the premier of new plays by Marjorie Chan, George F. Walker, Natasha Greenblatt, Martha Ross, and Haley McGee.  She has staged large-scale works for outdoor stages across the country including B.C.’s Caravan Farm Theatre, Ottawa’s National Arts Centre and Experimental Farm, the Canadian War Memorial in Vimy, France and for the past six years an outdoor winter walking play at Toronto’s Evergreen Brick Works and Christie Pits Park. With her company Common Boots Theatre, she has ventured into audio drama with SCADDING, a site-specific audio performance that premiered at last year’s Toronto Fringe Festival. She is currently in her second year studying for an MFA at the University of Calgary. The focus of her research is physical and site-specific theatre as audio performance using binaural recording.  She is the recipient of a Dora Moore Award. a Jessie Richardson Award, and a Harold.

Award winning writer, director, actor and dramaturge, Alex Bulmer has worked internationally in theatre, film, radio and performance art for over 25 years. She has worked with numerous organizations including the BBC, CBC, Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, National Theatre of England, Nightwood Theatre, The National Arts Centre of Canada, Royal Court, Graeae Theatre Company, APAE Brazil, and the London 2012 Olympics. She wrote the AMI award-winning BBC radio 4 adaptation of The Hunchback of Notre Dame and wrote the stage play SMUDGE, which earned Dora and Chalmers nominations for Best New Play and was Time Out’s Critics’ Choice during its U.K. premiere. Alex co-wrote the BAFTA nominated U.K. television series Cast Offs. She is co-founder of Invisible Flash UK , Artistic Director of Cripping The Stage in association with The British Council Toronto, and Co-Artistic Director of Common Boots Theatre in Canada. Currently Alex is lead curator for Brave 2021 Festival: CoMotion, an international Disability Arts
Festival produced by Harbourfront Centre. In 2014, Alex was named one of the most influential disabled artists by UK’s Power Magazine.

Haui aka Howard J. Davis is a multi-disciplinary artist of diverse heritage. He has worked at Stratford Festival as part of the Michael Langham Workshop Directors’ Workshop Presentation as an assistant director, Shaw Festival as an actor/designer; National Arts Centre as an assistant director; Tarragon
Theatre, Black Theatre Workshop, GCTC and Neptune Theatre as a video/projection designer; and performed with Neptune Theatre, Native Earth, Cahoots Theatre, Paper Canoe Projects, and Factory Theatre. In 2020 he is video designing the world premiere of Hamlet 911 by Anne-Marie MacDonald at the Stratford Festival directed by Alisa Palmer. Career highlights to date include: his award-winning internationally screened short film C’est Moi about the history of Marie-Josèphe Angélique, working with Marie Clements on her feature film Red Snow currently screening worldwide, developing a documentary about his mixed heritage entitled Mixed↑ and a new interdisciplinary show about Canadian singer Portia White supported by the Ontario Arts Council, the National Ballet of Canada’s Residency Programme and the National Playwright’s retreat at. His photography has been published in Harpers Bazaar UK, Amina Magazine (Paris) and was used in the design for Canadian Opera Company’s 2018 world premiere of Rufus Wainwright’s “Hadrian”. He has goals of fusion multiple artistic mediums into a hybrid form that focuses on themes of racialization, identity and history.

JD is a performer, playwright, theatre maker, comedian, director, inclusive educator and innovator. JD’s work involves solo shows, community and artist collaboration, traditional writing, experimental storytelling, video, event creation, co-design and stand-up comedy. Select plays include Certified, Stood, A Modern Woman’s Guide to Female Impersonation, Bearded Circus Ladies, Gloom, All In, Joke You, Funny in the Head, Me on the Map with Adrienne Wong, Dog of my Understanding, Auditions for an Embarrassed Woman, Turkey in the Woods, Ingenious Speculations with Rita Bozi and Kim Selody, The Opposite of Everything is True, and Under the Big Top. Her plays have been produced by Belfry Theatre (Victoria), Buddies in Bad Times (Toronto), and Vancouver companies Touchstone Theatre, The Frank Theatre, Neworld Theatre, and Solo Collective. Festival presentations include High Performance Rodeo
(Calgary), The Progress Festival (Toronto), FoldA (Kingston), Uno (Victoria), PuSh (Vancouver), Summerworks (Toronto), People’s Comedy Festival (Toronto), International Gay Theatre Festival (Dublin) and Vancouver International Children’s Festival. In 2017, JD participated in the Banff Centre Playwright’s Lab and the Playwright’s Unit at Alberta Theatre Projects with co-creator Adrienne Wong. Her fictitious memoir, Mercy Gene: the man made making of a mad woman, currently awaits publication.

Shanti Ikwe Gonzales is a theatre artist, arts administrator, and educator based in Montreal. Shanti is a commissioned 5×25 playwright at Nightswimming Theatre. She is the Membership and Communications Coordinator for the Quebec Drama Federation, collaborating on advocacy, lobbying, and resource distribution for the Quebec Anglophone Theatre Community. She is also an arts educator in partnership with Geordie Theatre School. Shanti has worked with organizations such as Directors Lab North, Geordie Theatre, Playwrights Workshop Montreal, Repercussion Theatre, Black Theatre Workshop, Teesri Duniya Theatre, Montreal Arts Interculturels (MAI), and more. She is an alumna of Black Theatre Workshop’s Artist Mentorship Program, Playwrights Workshop Montreal’s Young Creators Unit, and McGill University. Shanti’s work proposes creative solutions in the pursuit of impact, accessibility, compassion, and play. She is passionate about the development of sustainable organizational, creative, and educational practices – environmentally and socially.

I, (Linz Kenyon) old time Caravan troupe member
I joined in 1982 when the Caravan Stage Company toured
Powered by teams of Clydesdale horses and beautiful gypsy wagons.
I paid my Caravan dues, starting at the bottom; shoveling horse poop and playing an old falling apart stand-up bass in a show, wearing a chicken costume…

Travelling by horse and wagon down the Trans Canada Highway and along sweet little back roads playing small towns and communities around rural British Columbia.

Over the years I have been in many Caravan Shows
Musician actor composer playwright teamster wrangler shotgun rider
Gardener fundraiser volunteer family friend and Big Fan
As well I have toured and performed as a recording artist across Canada and in many parts of the world. Currently I am writing my 4th Caravan play script, BLACK HORSE, to be mounted and performed as the Caravan Farm Theatre Summer Production 2020 (now 2022). I am honored to be a part of the 3rd annual National Playwrights Retreat At the Caravan Farm Theatre.

Niall McNeil has been involved in theatre from an early age through his long association with the Caravan Farm Theatre. Niall acted in Leaky Heaven Theatre in Vancouver. Niall and Marcus Youssef have written two plays together, Peter Panties (2011) and King Arthur’s Night (2017). Both plays have been performed in and enjoyed by audiences in Canada. King Arthur’s Night went to Hong Kong in 2019 (Neworld Theatre). Niall loves researching new ideas, writing lyrics, making plays and is excited to be learning about film making. Niall is currently working on a project called ‘ Roots and Identity’, with collaborators Barak ade Soleil and Paul Power, who are mentoring his exploration and learning in Disability Arts practice.

Arthur Milner had a long association with Ottawa’s Great Canadian Theatre Company (GCTC), where he was resident playwright (1984-1991) and Artistic Director (1991-1995). His plays include 1997 (1984), Cheap Thrill (1985), Zero Hour (1986), Learning to Live with Personal Growth (1987), Masada (1990), all first produced by GCTC; Sisters in the Great Day Care War (1991); The City (commissioned and premiered by Workshop West and adapted for CBC radio drama, 1991); It’s Not a Country, It’s Winter (CBC radio drama, 1998); Crusader of the World (for high schools, commissioned and premiered by Green Thumb Theatre, 1999); Joan Henry: The Musical (with Allen Cole and Estelle Shook, commissioned and premiered by Caravan Farm Theatre, 2003).

Rebecca Northan is an actor, director, producer, and theatre creator. Her company, Spontaneous Theatre, is responsible for creating improvisation based shows that feature an audience member in the lead role: Blind Date, Legend Has It, Undercover. She has been developing a new project, An Undiscovered Shakespeare, with the Stratford Festival of Canada for several years. She has also written several more ‘traditional scripts’: ZORRO: Family Code, SLIPPER: a Cinderella Story, and Kung Fu Panties.

Paul David Power has spent the past 25 years working as a writer, playwright, actor and director. His formal training includes holding a BA in English with a concentration in theatre and a BAA in Journalism. Paul’s work includes roles in over 30 stage plays across the country as well as directing and producing. His leadership positions include President of the Liffey Players Drama Society in Calgary AB for three years, Artistic Director for Hubcity Theatre in Moncton NB for five years and Artistic Associate for the Shakespeare by the Sea Festival in St. John’s NL for three years. Paul is also an award winning playwright with five produced works to his credit including the award winning Roomies, Last Chance, The View From Down Here, In Your Eyes and his current award winning and critically acclaimed touring production, Crippled. Paul currently heads his own NL based company – Power Productions – a professional theatre company dedicated to the development of works and artists with a focus on the disabled Deaf and MAD Arts domain.

In a failed attempt to escape Presto, Luke Reece left his hometown of Mississauga under the guise of becoming a Toronto-based artist. He is a theatre producer, playwright, spoken word poet, and arts educator. He is the Producer for Canada’s leading culturally specific theatre company, Obsidian Theatre, and a Member of the Toronto Poetry Project. He continually seeks opportunities to empower and support young-in-craft artists with his collective Little Black Afro Theatre, creating spaces for artists to develop work with and for the communities they come from. Through his work as an artistic leader within the national arts community, he advocates for engaging and nuanced storytelling that challenges Canadian audiences. Luke is one of Toronto’s most decorated slam poets, becoming the Toronto Poetry Slam (TPS) Grand Champion in 2017, winning the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word as the captain of the TPS team and then again in 2018 as the team coach. In 2018 he placed 2nd in Canada individually which earned him a spot representing the country at the 2019 World Cup of Poetry Slam in Paris France where he placed 4th.