MAKAMBE K SIMAMBA, Playwright & Performer

Makambe K Simamba is a Dora Award winning playwright and actor for her solo work, Our Fathers, Sons, Lovers and Little Brothers (b current performing arts). She recently co-directed inVISIBLE (Too) at the University of Lethbridge. Selected acting credits: Blacktop Sky (Obsidian Theatre), A Chitenge Story (Handsome Alice), GIANT (Ghost River Theatre), Bea (Sage Theatre), SIA (Pyretic Productions), inVISIBLE (Handsome Alice), Burn Your Maps (Cinelou Films), Grand Army (Netflix), and Young Drunk Punk (Citytv). Makambe is a national award winning playwright whose work includes Our Fathers, Sons, Lovers and Little Brothers, A Chitenge Story, Makambe Speaks, MUD and The Drum Major Instinct. She is 2020/21 Urjo Kareda Artist in Residence at the Tarragon Theatre. Makambe is a proud Zambian whose intention is to be of service through her ability to tell stories.

BIOS - OUR FATHERS, SONS, LOVERS AND LITTLE BROTHERS

DONNA-MICHELLE ST. BERNARD, Director

Donna-Michelle St. Bernard, aka Belladonna the Blest, is an emcee, playwright, and arts administrator. Her work has been recognized with a Siminovitch Prize nomination, SATAward nomination, the Herman Voaden Playwriting Award, the Enbridge playRites Award, a Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play, and two nominations for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama. She is the current artistic director of New Harlem Productions. She is based in Toronto.

Selected Credits: Her main body of work, the 54ology, includes: Cake, Sound of the Beast, A Man A Fish, Salome’s Clothes, Gas Girls, Give It Up, The Smell of Horses, and The First Stone. Works for young audiences include the META-nominated Reaching For Starlight, The Chariot, and Rabbit King of Kenya. Opera libretti include Forbidden (Afarin Mansouri/Tapestry Opera) and Oubliette (Ivan Barbotin/Tapestry Opera).

Other: She is co-editor with Yvette Nolan of the Playwrights Canada Press anthologies Refractions: Solo and Refractions: Scenes, and editor of Indian Act: Residential School Plays.

MADDIE BAUTISTA, Original Music Composition

Maddie Bautista is an award-winning sound designer, theatre artist, artist-educator, and producer. Maddie’s sound design and compositions have been featured in theatre companies and festivals across the country, including Luminato, Theatre Passe Muraille, Aluna Theatre, b current, rEvolver Festival in Vancouver, High Performance Rodeo in Calgary, and more.

Awards: As a sound designer, Maddie has been nominated for both a Dora Award for her music in Eraser at RISER 2019 and nominated for the 2020 Pauline McGibbon Award. As a performer, Maddie received the SummerWorks Spotlight Performance Award 2016 for her performance in My Nightmares Wear White, Nightswimming’s 5x25 2017 Commission and NOW Magazine’s Audience Choice Award 2018 for co-creating 4inXchange in her performance art duo xLq, which toured across Canada. She is the recipient of fu-GEN Theatre’s inaugural Walk the Walk Commission for emerging femme Asian-Canadian playwrights for her play Kersey Kamayan Gets Woke.

Other: She is a Bi, Saudi Arabia-born Filipinx artist based in Toronto.

SANDI BECKER, Stage Manager

Selected Credits: Simone Half and Half (Black Theatre Workshop), This London Life (Grand Theatre), Every Brilliant Thing (Festival Players), The Black Drum (Soulpepper/Deaf Culture Centre), Torn Through Time (MTYP), Space Opera Zero (Eldritch Theatre), Midsummer Night’s Dream/Romeo and Juliet (Canadian Stage). Upcoming: Metamorphosis/Mountains of Madness (Eldritch Theatre)

TREVOR SCHWELLNUS, Set & Video Designer

Selected Credits: Directed & Designed Dividing Lines, What I learned from a decade of fear, Nohayquiensepa (No one knows) (Aluna Theatre). Designs: Marine Life, Hush (Tarragon Theatre), Here are the Fragments (ECT Collective), Out the Window (Luminato + The Theatre Centre), Ultrasound (Cahoots), Blood Wedding, The Cherry Orchard (Modern Times), /dance/songs/, Relay (Ame Henderson), Gertrude & Alice, Of A Monstrous Child: A Gaga Musical, The Silicone Diaries (Buddies in Bad Times), Alien Creature (Theatre Pass Muraille).

Upcoming: White Girls in Mocassins (Yolanda Bonnell), The House of Bernarda Alba (Lorca), The Cave (Thomson Highway, John Millard), Last Steps (Aluna Theatre)

Awards: 6 Dora Awards (of 18 nominations) for design, one Harold Award (House of Bettis), shortlisted for the 2015 Siminovich Award. Other: One of Trevor’s chief obsessions is collaboration at the intersection of design, dramaturgy, and cross-cultural art-making – as with his work as Artistic Producer at www.alunatheatre.ca

DIANA REYES, Sound Designer

Selected Credits: New Monuments (CanStage/Luminato), THIRD WORLD (SummerWorks), Our Fathers, Sons, Lovers and Little Brothers (bcurrent), Mixie and the Half Breeds (FuGen), This Will Be Excellent (Carousel). Selected Film and Television: Honey, Lost Girl, Remedy.

Other: Diana Reyes (a.k.a. Fly Lady Di) is a multi-disciplinary artist known for Dance, DJing and Stand-Up. Toronto-born of Filipino descent, she is happy to make her first professional theatre debut as Sound Designer with Our Fathers. BLACK LIVES STILL MATTER.

ANDREA LUNDY, Lighting Designer

Selected Credits: More Fine Girls, The Misanthrope, Courageous, House of Many Tongues, Benevolance, The Pessimist, Chimera, Humble Boy, Rune Arlidge and production manager 1997 - 2001 (Tarragon Theatre); Last Wife, Choir Boy, The 39 Steps and Constellations (Centaur Theatre); Hana’s Suitcase (Young People’s Theatre); Andromache, Tout Comme Elle, Hamlet, The Eco Show, Insomnia, Possible Worlds and Half Life (Necessary Angel); The Mill (Theatrefront).

Awards: Nominated 22 times and received 9 Dora Mavor Moore Awards and has also been the recipient of 2 META Awards.

Other: Andrea sits on the Board of Directors for SMarts (Stage Managing the Arts) and CITT/ICTS (Canadian Institute for Theatre Technology) and is the Program Director of the Production Design and Technical Arts Program at the National Theatre School of Canada

GERRY EGAN, Touring Production Manager

Gerry Egan has almost 20 years of experience stage managing small and large scale productions for companies and festivals including The Canadian Opera Company, The Grand Theatre, Just for Laughs in Toronto, and the Pam Am Games in Toronto at Nathan Phillip Square, as well as many other theatres across Canada. He was the Interim Scheduling Manager at the Canadian Opera Company for the 2013/14 Season and serves as the Production and Facilities Manager at Streetcar Crownest for Crow's Theatre. Gerry is currently the Director of Production at Tarragon Theatre and is truly enjoying the uniqueness of supporting new work.