Studio 58 A Journal of the Plague Year

In alphabetical order by character:

Compass Salesman/Puppeteer/Police Detective/Private Detective – Ava Knight (she/they)
Doctor/Dentist/Enema Man – Dylan McNulty (he/him)
Mr. Dodgson/A Staff Member in Charge of the Set/A Staff Member in Charge of the Script – Alex Christie (he/him)
Forgotten Woman/A Prostitute/A Lady in Mourning Dress – Irene Lozano-Garcia (she/her)
Gaga/Patient/Plague Patient 3 – Izel De Lara (she/her)
Kaimi/Plague Patient 2/Watermelon Man 1 – Keely Coleman (she/her)
Komeo – Kobe Lim (he/him)
Lost Girl/Ballerina Girl/Young Lady - Lost Girl Transformed – Emma Tow (she/her)
Manager/Mayo/Woman Dressed Like a Man – Juno (any)
Man in High Boots 1/Disinfector 1/Watermelon Man 2 – Gus Setala-Gay (they/them)
Man in High Boots 2/Disinfector 2/Watermelon Man 3 – Evan Makowecki (he/him)
Mariko/A Girl – Chhavi Disawar (she/her)
Mugio – Joel Bakajika (he/him)
A Native of the Colony/Burmese Turtle/A Boy/Butler – Daniel Marte (he/him)
Plague Infested Cabaret Dancer/Choe/Plague Patient 1 – Michelle Molina (she/her)
The Rat Catcher Mother/Servant/Fly Swatting Woman – Saidi Mader (she/her)
The Rat Catcher Son/Master/Self-Confined Man – Dre Zachary-Mattias Ayisi-Nyarko (he/him)
A Sailor/Servant – Alexander Markovina (he/him)
Taxidermist/Slide Projector Vendor/Monsieur Opera – Aidan Currie (he/him)
Taxidermist's Wife/Slide Projector Vendor's Wife/Madame Opera – Lucy McLachlan (she/her)
Yoko/Maid/Maidservant – Evan Andersen Sterns (he/him)

Studio 58 offers professional theatre training for actors and production personnel. The six terms of practical training consist of intensive classroom work as well as performance and backstage experience in productions. Production students and third term acting students operate sound, lighting and video and act as running crew and stage management.

Stage Management
Assistant Stage Managers – Destiny Renne (they/she), Liam Pritchard (they/them)

Set & Paint
Set Crew Head – Aurora Maher (she/her)
Paint Crew Head – Samaya Pankanea (she/her)
Crew – Trinity Ann Chase (she/her), James Fujimagari (he/him), Megan McGregor (she/they), Michael (he/they), Sally Montgomerie (she/her), Fifi Samuel (she/her)

Props
Crew Head – Haylee Raby (she/her)
Crew – Lucy Bennett (she/her), Jack Ea (he/him), Ava Joy (she/her), Amelia Kondor (she/her)

Costumes
Crew Head – Taylor Weeks (they/she)
Crew – Sappho Brown (they/them), Gabriel Eum (he/him), Edan McLeod (she/her), Jordin Yewchuk (she/her)

Lighting
Crew Head – Hazel Ivy Ogden (any)
Crew – Kamryn Cartwright (she/her), Isabella Maria Ciccone (she/her), Vada Collins (she/her), Eva Facundo (she/her), Fraser Read (they/them)

Sound
Crew Head – James Levy Yue (he/him)
Crew – Jeremy Lin (he/him)

Marketing 
Crew Head – Jocelyn Wale (she/her)
Crew – Sawyer Marc (he/him)

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陳嘉昊 left Hong Kong alone when he was 16. Derek Chan lived in Flekke, Norway for two years, and then graduated from SFU in theatre performance in 2010. A settler on unceded lands, Derek is a performance maker and new work deviser, creating in theatre and adjacent spaces such as media and installation arts. Derek writes, directs, dramaturgs, performs, translates and designs as a freelancer. He is also a soapboxer and manifestoer . 

A fierce defender of the overlooked and underserved within colonial systems and practices, Derek is a specialist in new, experimental work development and production, practicing a school of expansive, intersectional dramaturgy informed by context and intent. He has been given some awards and nominated for a few others so far. He was also fortunate to participate in some inspiring national residencies and international things. 

To this day, 陳嘉昊 has not moved back to Hong Kong, but hasn't left it alone either. 

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Clayton Melanson (he/him) is an actor from Edmonton, Alberta, Treaty 6 Territory, and is grateful to be living and working on the unceded lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. Clayton is a recent graduate of the Studio 58 Acting program and is thankful to be welcomed back by the faculty and ensemble to work on the show. 

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Anne Constance Osborne is a fifth-term Production student at Studio 58 and has been an active member of the theatre community for over a decade. Her theatrical experience spans multiple disciplines, including set design, stage management, sound design and lighting design. She is honoured to serve as stage manager for A Journal of the Plague Year and is grateful for the opportunity to collaborate with Derek Chan 陳嘉昊. Her upcoming projects include assistant set designer for Something Rotten! at Studio 58 and apprentice stage manager for Arsenic and Old Lace at the Globe Theatre in Regina. She hopes you enjoy the performance.

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Starlynn Chen (she/her) is an emerging set and costume designer, and a graduate of the Production Program at Studio 58.  Recent credits: Set design for Jack and the Beanstalk (Metro Theatre); costume design for The Replacement Wife (United Players); The Odd Couple (Theatre NorthWest), James and the Giant Peach (CTORA); set & costume design for RENT (Metro Theatre); assistant costume design for Much Ado About Nothing (Bard on the Beach); and set design for Au Grand Jour (Théâtre la Seizième), Linck and Mülhahn (Studio 58). She would like to thank the entire team, cast, crew and faculty for all their support, and is deeply grateful to be back for the first time as a graduate. She hopes you enjoy the show! 

starlynnchen.com 

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Emma is a Vancouver-based props designer and fabricator with professional experience in mascot making. She specializes in crafting detailed, durable and functional objects that support storytelling in live performance and is delighted to return to work with Studio 58. 

Emma holds a BFA in Technical Theatre & Design from the University of Lethbridge and currently works as a Venue Technician at Gateway Theatre. Her design and production credits include Props Designer for Linck & Mülhahn and Into the Woods (Studio 58). As a props builder and buyer, her credits include Ms. Holmes and Ms. Watson - Apt. 2B and Lionel Bart’s Oliver! (Gateway Theatre); The Garden of Alice, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Pearl Fishers and HMS Pinafore (Vancouver Opera); Heathers: The Musical (Studio 58); and The Neverending Story, Curious George, Sister Act, Return to Treasure Island, The Giver, Goosebumps The Musical, Junie B. Jones and Into the Woods (Storybook Theatre). 

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elika mojtabaei الیکا مجتبایی is an Iranian-born costume designer, writer and dramaturg based on the stolen lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh and səlilwətaɬ Nations. Her interdisciplinary practice spans theatre, dance, film and installation art. 

Through colour, texture, surrealist gestures and the poetry of the unsaid, her work interrogates how language and apparel have been weaponized to marginalize, control and erase.  

As a costume designer, she has collaborated with Jin-me Yoon, vAct, Theatre Conspiracy, Salome Nieto, Company 605, Alexis Fletcher and others. 

She is currently developing a bilingual surrealist text- and design-led play, Draw Me a Home, based on children’s experiences of the Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988). 

elika co-leads the experimental multidisciplinary company The Biting School and is the co-founder of No Small Feat Collective. 

elikamoj.com

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Melissa is a theatre artist based on the traditional, ancestral and unceded lands of the traditional, ancestral and unceded lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples (Vancouver), with a focus on costume design and stage management. 

She has had the pleasure of working with many incredible companies, including After Party Theatre, Bard on the Beach, Caravan Farm Theatre, Carousel Theatre for Young People, Green Thumb Theatre, ITSAZOO Productions, Presentation House Theatre, Ruby Slippers Theatre, Studio 58, The Arts Club Theatre Company, The Elbow Theatre, Theatre Replacement, Théâtre la Seizième and Touchstone Theatre. Recent credits include: Costume designer for Baggage and The Kitchen (Studio 58) and Head of Wardrobe at Bard on the Beach. 

Melissa is a graduate of Queen's University and Studio 58. 

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Jonathan, better known as Jono, is an award-winning Korean-Canadian lighting designer who currently lives and works on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. Recent credits: The Hobbit (Pacific Theatre); Grandma. Gangsta. Guerrilla. (Ruby Slippers Theatre); The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe (PHT); Behind the Moon (Touchstone Theatre); Ins Choi: Son of a Preacherman (Pacific Theatre); Casey and Diana (Arts Club); The Frontliners (Blackout Art Society, Firehall Arts Centre and vAct); Braiding the Land - tour (Raven Spirit Dance); RENT (Metro Theatre); Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson - Apt. 2B (Gateway Theatre); James and the Giant Peach (CTORA); Ridge (Brendan McLeod & The Fugitives); TRANSFORM Festival: The Starwalker Experience (Urban Ink); Inferno: A Hip Hop Opera (re:Naissance). 

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Mayara Nobre is a multidisciplinary artist with training in theatre and film in Brazil and Canada. Her credits include This Is Not a Tale of Carlos Fernando Abreu (Director), The Dressing Room (Production Designer), A Ópera do Malandro (Victoria) and We Are Boy Band (Assistant to the Director). As a fifth-term Production student at Studio 58, Mayara is exploring her passion for lighting and costume design. She is delighted to be part of A Journal of the Plague Year and is excited to stage manage Studio 58’s upcoming musical, Something Rotten!

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Dissecting, interrogating and experimenting with texture and form is a core aspect of Anju’s practice as a sound artist, composer and media artist. In her visual arts, sound sculpture and media arts works, she uses raw materials to create industrial or brutalist shapes and structures as research interests, using these artistic forms to challenge established structures.

She has toured, presented and performed her work across Canada, in Europe, Brazil, Mexico, Japan and the US and has been commissioned by Two Rivers Gallery, New Music Concerts Toronto, New Adventures in Sound Art (NAISA), Rumble Theatre, Vancouver New Music, re:Naissance Opera, Canadian League of Composers, Bard on the Beach, CEM and Continuum Ensemble. Anju also performs and tours regularly with her noise/experimental violin project, The Nausea.

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Paige Louter is a queer theatre creator and producer based in so-called Vancouver. She holds an MA in Drama and Theatre from the University of Galway, and works as a performer, writer, outside eye and intimacy director. Credits include producing The Café (ITSAZOO/Aphotic) and Sunrise Betties (ITSAZOO), producing/assistant directing Meeting (ITSAZOO/Pacific), producing and performing in The Wolves (With a Spoon/Rumble; Jessie Nomination: Outstanding Production) and The Effect (ITSAZOO/Rumble) and performing in The Lonesome West (Cave Canem), Twelfth Night (Tottering Biped) and Coarse: The Brontes (Edinburgh Fringe). Year-round, they work as ITSAZOO’s Co-Artistic Producer and Currently Arts’ Operations Manager. Upcoming: solo shows God Joke Play and Nod. 

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Shizuka is an award-winning multidisciplinary artist whose expertise spans puppetry, set design, illustration and jewelry making. Her theatrical portfolio includes collaborations with Arts Club, Theatre Replacement, Théâtre la Seizième, Carousel Theatre for Young People, Rumble, Neworld and Boca del Lupo. Recent credits include set design for East Van Panto: West Van Story (Theatre Replacement) and Stuart Little (CTYP). A Studio 58 graduate, she has earned eight Jessie Richardson Theatre Awards, an Ovation Award, the Earl Klein Memorial Scholarship and the Steven B. Jung Award. Her creative practice bridges performance, visual arts and craftsmanship. Shiz currently serves as Set Design Instructor and Production Program Coordinator at Studio 58, produces puppet slams throughout the year with the Vancouver International Puppet Festival and parents her hilariously creative three-year-old daughter. 

Interim Co-Artistic Director – Raes Calvert (he/him)
Interim Co-Aristic Director – Stephanie Elgersma (she/her)
Communications and Marketing Manager – Halla Bertrand (she/her)
Production Manager (On Leave) – Ruth Bruhn (she/her)
Production Manager – Pamela Jakobs (she/her)
Technical Director – Kevin MacDonald (he/him)

A big thank you to the following people, organizations and companies for supporting A Journal of the Plague Year:

• Rachel E. Ross – lighting support

• Christian Ching – lighting support

• Robin Richardson – carpentry support

• Kyle Schulte – carpentry support

• Ace Martens – audio support