Kate Berg, Kahlila Ball, Zoë Autumn, Abi Padilla; Photo by Emily Cooper
By: Jessica Swale
Directed by: Jamie King
Set and Prop Design: Emerenne Saefkow
Costume Design: Alaia Hamer
Lighting Design: Hina Niskioka
Sound Design: Evan Rein
Fight Direction: Nathan Kay
October 6–16, 2022
Live at Performance Works on Granville Island
Content Advisories: Use of fog machine, swearing
“They say you don’t have the capacity to be scholars. So read everything. Learn everything. Know the philosophers, and then think for yourselves.” It's 1896 and four women begin their studies at Girton, the first college to allow women at Cambridge University. However, unlike their male peers, no matter how hard they study, the Girton girls are denied degrees upon graduation. They leave as “Blue Stockings”—educated and intellectual, but both unqualified for the workforce and unmarriageable in the eyes of good society. A sharp, comical and inspiring story of young women confronting the challenges of life and love, while fighting for their right to graduate.
Creative Team
Jamie King is an awarded theatre director, dramaturg and producer; they were last at Studio 58 with the Risky Nights project, Can We Fix It?. Recent directing credits: What if? (Green Thumb Theatre); SYSTEM FAILURE, The Fleetwing Fables, and SPARAGMOS (Caravan Farm Theatre); Desiree AMA (Upintheair Theatre); Days of Retrograde - the Relay Project, and Big Sister (The Cultch); The Wolves (With A Spoon/Rumble/Pacific Theatre); LOVE/SICK (Pacific Theatre); and Bull (Rumble Theatre). Jamie has workshopped and assisted for Arts Club Theatre, Bard on The Beach, Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre, Electric Company Theatre and Itsazoo Productions among others. In the spring you can see their work at the Stanley Theatre for The Legend of Georgia McBride. Check out more www.jamiekinghere.com.
Originally from the small northern town of Smithers BC, Emerenne Saefkow is a non-binary, multidisciplinary artist who adores almost anything creative and hands on. Emerenne currently works as a scenic helper at Great Northern Way scene shop and enjoys expanding their creative creating arsenal. Some of their previous theatre credits include Studio 58's "Everybody" (Set and Props), Carousel theatre's "The tempest" (Costume Design and creation) and "One of a Kind", a zoom theatre piece for the Vancouver International Children's Festival (Writing and Illustrating). This is their third time being back at Studio 58 as a professional designer and scenic painter, and they're delighted to once again share their joy of theatre with fellow emerging artists. You can see more of their work at EmerenneSaefkow.com.
Alaia is a theatre designer located in Vancouver, BC. Recent projects she has worked on include costume design for H.M.S. Pinafore, Carmen Up Close and Personal, Associate for Amahl and the Night Visitors (VO); Beneath Springhill, The Birds and the Bees, assistant costume design for Sweat, The Humans (The Arts Club), costume design for Beautiful Man (PI Theatre), costume for C'mon Angie (Touchstone), assistant costume Romeo and Juliet, Coriolanaus, Taming of the Shrew, Macbeth (Bard on the Beach), set design for She Kills Monsters (UBC), production design for The Drawer Boy (ETC). She has worked on a variety of smaller shows through Vancouver and has a passion for costuming dance. Alaia is a graduate of the UBC Theatre Design program in 2017 and holds an English literature degree from 2012.
Hina is a lighting designer, programmer and operator based in lower mainland and south of Vancouver Island in BC. Being a Japanese artist living in Canada, she enjoys collaborating with other artists with variety of cultural backgrounds. Her most recent lighting design credits are revision of Gerald King's lighting design for Wabi-Sabi (Kokoro Dance) and Kwê (Jeanette Kotowich). She assisted some of the notable lighting designers in BC: Michael Whitfield, Gerald King and Sophie Tang. Her most recent credits of assistant lighting designer are Harlem Duet (Bard on the Beach 2022), and Bad Parent (vACT). Her passion for lighting is not only for designing, but also programming and operating lighting boards. With her eyes of designers, she worked as a lighting console programmer/operator on live events (music and corporate events included), theatre and dance, as well as television shows.
She studied and received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from University of Victoria (2020), focusing on lighting design and technical theatre aspects. If you would like to know more about her works, please visit her website hinalighting.com.
Evan is excited to be sound designing Blue Stockings. Previous sound designs: Yellow Fever (Firehall Arts Centre), Spinning You Home (Spinner’s Collective), Focus (happy/accidents), Anonymous (Studio 58), Centurions (The Centurions Project), and The Skin of Our Teeth (Studio 58). Evan is also an actor and has worked with Pacific Theatre, Globe Theatre, Carousel Theatre, and Theatre Replacement. Film/TV: Upload (Amazon), Valley of the Boom (National Geographic), Nancy Drew (CW), Debris (NBC), Heartland (CBC), Sacred Lies (Facebook), Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist (NBC). His performance in the feature film Blue Hour garnered nominations from both the Leo Awards and UBCP/ACTRA Awards for Best Lead Performance by a Male in a Motion Picture. Evan is a graduate of Studio 58.
Select Credits include: Bunny (The Search Party), Strangers on a Train (Vertigo Theatre), All’s Well That Ends Well (Bard On The Beach), King Arthur’s Night (Neworld Theatre).