2022-2023

Playwrights

1. Emmett Hanly
2. Laara Ong
3. Sydney Ballard
4. Braedon Sunnes
5. Shauna Johannesen
6. Sierra Haynes
7. Tina Teeninga
8. Kathy Parsons
9. Babaloluwa Oyedele
10. Kaitlin Williams

Emmett Hanly
Emmett Hanly is a member of the Métis Nation of British Columbia living and working on the unceded territory of the Squamish (Skxwú7mesh), Musqueam (xʷməθkʷəy̓əm), and Tsleil-Waututh (Səl̓ilwətaɁɬ) Nations. Having graduated from Trinity Western University in 2020 with a BFA in Acting and having participated in Playwright’s Theatre Centre’s Block A Writing Cohort in 2020 as well as their Producer-Playwrighting Cohort in 2022, Emmett is an actor, musician, and playwright. Emmett is passionate about creating genre-bending art that is both surreal and politically engaged, specifically focusing on topics such as queerness, religious trauma, and decolonization. Playwriting credits include: Mr. Big, (SAMC Theatre’s New Generations 2018), The Wake of Leroy McGuinness (Gallery 7’s Abby Fest 2019), and Reach (SAMC Theatre’s New Generations 2020). Emmett also leads the Lost Souls of Gastown Walking Tour with Forbidden Vancouver, as well as sings and plays guitar in a post-punk band, Rougaroux.

LAARA ONG
Laara has acted for a number of years in theatres across Canada and was nominated for a Jessie award for her role in Golden Child as well as a Sterling award for Mom, Dad, I’m Living with a White Girl. Her love of storytelling has led to her writing and sharing her personal stories on CBC Radio and during the last few years has made some short videos on her various experiences during the pandemic. It has also been her privilege to work at Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre in various capacities over the years to see exciting new diverse work being developed and put on the stage.

Sydney Jade Ballard
Sydney Jade Ballard is an emerging multi-disciplinary artist from Vancouver, Canada. She has an extensive background in various art forms, including piano, composing for musical theatre, singing, music theory, assistant music directing, playing in orchestras, and playwriting. Sydney has attended the Broadway Student Summit Workshops twice in New York City and taken multiple songwriting classes at Berklee College of Music in Boston. She feels grateful to have learned from well-known songwriters in the industry, such as Kara Dioguardi (one of P!nk’s co-writers), Wrabel (co-writer for P!nk and Kesha) and other industry professionals such as Laura Osnes (Tony Award  nominated Broadway star) and Peter van Reesema (music director for Broadway’s Hamilton). Sydney has been commissioned to write music for events at Capilano University, where spent two years in the Musical Theatre Diploma Program while taking additional songwriting courses. She was also the Assistant Music Director for the university’s spring musical, A Chorus Line.

Braedon Grover Sunnes
Braedon recently graduated from the School of Arts Media and Culture’s (SAMC) BFA in Acting program. In the last four years, he got to experience a wide array of theatre creation through acting, writing, directing, devising, singing, and so much more. Through some of SAMC Theatre’s short play festivals, he has had the privilege of having two of his plays produced: The Den-Aisle directed by Kerri Norris in February 2022, and Roadkill directed by Seth Schouten going up this February. Braedon is most inspired by work that takes the difficult and very real challenges we face in day to-day life and throws them into fantastical and surreal settings, and loves when he is subverted by a twist. He hopes his works can live without bounds and touch the hearts of those who are different from him.

Shauna Johannesen
Shauna is an award-winning writer, actor, and filmmaker. Her plays have been produced across Western Canada, including “Common Grace,” at Pacific Theatre and “M is for Music,” commissioned by the VSO.

Shauna also wrote and starred in Bedbugs: A Musical Love Story about a rag-tag group of bed bug puppets who are let’s say…misunderstood. She then wrote and directed the short film Trying, a romantic comedy about What to Expect when you’re Not Expecting.  Most recently Shauna co-directed a Leo-nominated music video for The Kwerks with Jason Goode. Shauna also works as a dramaturg and an actor. She can be seen in the latest seasons of the Babysitters Club on Netflix and When Calls the Heart on Hallmark. Shauna is also a mom, and is married to a Jazz Musician with whom she often collaborates.

See more at IMDB and shaunajohannesen.com. Or follow Shauna on Twitter @sljohannesen.

Sierra Haynes
Sierra Haynes (she/her) is an emerging, multi-Dora nominated and winning multi-disciplinary artist from Regina, SK. She is an Artistic Associate at The Globe Theatre. She comes from a devised theatre background. Sierra’s writing has been produced by The National Theatre School, Studio 58, and The Globe Theatre. Recent credits include: A TONIC FOR DESPERATE TIMES (Theatre Gargantua); upcoming MISS CALEDONIA (Globe Theatre). Musical theatre credits include: Wednesday Addams in THE ADDAMS FAMILY MUSICAL (Regina Lyric Theatre); Motormouth Maybelle in HAIRSPRAY (Regina Summer Stage); Faraday in the workshop of new Canadian musical MONOCEROS (Studio 58/The Musical Stage Co.). Composing credits include: PAPER (Globe Theatre); THE RADIUM GIRLS (Studio 58); LADY MACBETH AND THE NOT QUITE DEAD (MusicalTheatre Works); and EMILIA (United Players of Vancouver) where her work was reviewed as “stirring”. Sierra’s music reflects both her passions for folk and bluegrass sounds and Broadway musicals. She is a proud graduate of Studio 58.

Tina Teeninga
Vancouver-based playwright and actor, Tina has a curiosity and passion for investigating and expressing what it means to be human. Recent credits include major roles in Movin’ On Up new play festival (Staircase Theatre), Women of Lockerbie (Lock & Key), Agnes of God (Stones Throw/Pacific Theatre), and Wolf at the Door (Otherwise Productions), which she also wrote and produced. She wrote and starred in Saddest Girl in the World, seen all across Canada. Currently three scripts, Tree-Girl, Red Bicycle and Sparrow’s Nest  are in development as part of Pacific Theatre’s ‘Working With’ program. Teeninga is also deeply involved in the ever-present work of getting two spirited kids through childhood in collaboration with her greatest co-producer, James. She loves fluffy dogs’ ears, the sound of trees blowing in the wind, the scent of purple lilacs in spring, and the taste of chocolate and butter.

Kathy Parsons
Kathy received her BFA from York University in Creative Ensemble and Playwrighting and, thanks to Pacific Theatre’s sponsorship of her, she studied Dramaturgy at Simon Fraser University. Kathy has a 16 year relationship with Pacific Theatre through acting, directing and dramaturgy. She was PT’s Literary Manager for several years where she focused on new play development, dramaturgy and script reading.

Some of her favorite writing projects include The Sea and Crazy Eights (PT’s 24 hour theatre festival), A Good Mother (PT’s Staged reading series), Escape Artists I (Vancouver Fringe Festival), and The Hitchhiker (Jason Goode’s Indie movie which won best screenplay at the Global ComedyFest). She is a playwright for Eastside Story Guild (a children and youth theatre program at Grandview church) and has various other writing projects on the go.

Babaloluwa Oyedele

Kaitlin Williams
Kaitlin is an interdisciplinary theatre artist and the Artistic Director of Pacific Theatre. Some favourite PT credits include Kim’s Convenience, Mother of the Maid and Almost, Maine (director) and Jesus Freak, It’s a Wonderful Life and Doubt (actor). She has also worked with Bard on the Beach, the Arts Club, the Belfry Theatre, ITSAZOO, Delinquent Theatre, the Electric Company, Chemainus Theatre, Western Canada Theatre, Touchstone Theatre, Rumble Theatre, and many others. She’s been nominated for some Jessies and is a graduate of the University of Victoria. Kaitlin extends her gratitude to the original caretakers of this unceded Coast Salish territory, the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.

2021-2022

Samantha Forbes

Samantha (she/her) is a playwright, author, and actress from the Bahamas where she owns a faith-based performing arts company called I.D.ENTITY. She has been a Dental Hygienist for over 15 years and is currently studying at UBC in the Faculty of Arts.

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Chantal Gallant

Chantal Gallant (She/Her) is an emerging Actor and Playwright living on the unceded, traditional territory of the  xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. Chantal studied acting and creative writing at the University of Victoria (BFA ) and is an island girl at heart. After moving to Vancouver, she eventually found her way to Pacific Theatre and was a PT Apprentice during the 2019/2020 season.

Current playwriting projects include Nosegate; A Reindeer Story, and Nowheresville, BC. Select acting credits include; Mother of the Maid (Pacific Theatre); Nosegate (Stone’s Throw Productions); Riding with Change (MONOVA); The Comedy of Errors, Gutt girls (Phoenix Theatre). When not focused on theatre, Chantal loves sharing the arts with youth, helping kids and teens become confident agents of change in their communities.

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Emmett Hanley

Emmett Hanly (he/they) is a member of the Métis Nation of British Columbia and a recent graduate of Trinity Western University’s BFA-Acting program. Emmett is a playwright, actor, filmmaker, and musician with a passion for creating genre-bending art that is both surreal and politically engaged, specifically focusing on topics such as queerness, religious trauma, and decolonization.

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Shauna Johannesen 

Shauna is an award-winning writer, actor, and filmmaker. Her plays have been produced across Western Canada, including “Common Grace,” at Pacific Theatre and “M is for Music,” commissioned by the VSO.

Shauna also wrote and starred in Bedbugs: A Musical Love Story about a rag-tag group of bed bug puppets who are let’s say…misunderstood. She then wrote and directed the short film Trying, a romantic comedy about What to Expect when you’re Not Expecting.  Most recently Shauna co-directed a Leo-nominated music video for The Kwerks with Jason Goode.

Shauna also works as a dramaturg and an actor. She can be seen in the latest seasons of the Babysitters Club on Netflix and When Calls the Heart on Hallmark.

Shauna is also a mom, and is married to a Jazz Musician with whom she often collaborates.

 

See more at IMDB and shaunajohannesen.com. Or follow Shauna on Twitter @sljohannesen.

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Laura Koch

Laura is an award-winning musician and performer who seeps honesty through every pore as she teases and toys with melodies like she was born doing it, and she almost was. Creating sounds and melodies from her youngest years, in the secret of her family home’s basement where the old piano stood, hidden deep in her creative closet; it wasn’t until her adult years that she blasted the floodgates open and began the rush of soul-shattering songs that comprise her repertoire today. She folds and unfolds notes and words like origami, intricate and delicate and structured and wild, pouring out tones that rival the sweetest misty mornings and the richest wailing cries, only to be stopped short with a rhythmic consonant chopping at the empty spaces, causing your body to vibrate and your shoulders to shimmy. Laura has an approach to music that is all at once new and old, fresh and ancient. Her stage presence is warm and authentic, drawing listeners into a friendship they weren’t expecting, her stories and lyrics eliciting nods and knowing smiles. Drawing from her beloved folk roots, leaning lazily into soul, tipping a hat to pop, your ears won’t be disappointed.

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Keith Murray

Keith Murray (they/them) is a faith leader and transdisciplinary artist – a writer, designer, activist, speaker & facilitator. In their second year of seminary at Vancouver School of Theology, Murray is a candidate for ordained ministry in the United Church of Canada. They currently lead the thriving 2SLGBTQIA+ affirming ministries at Hillhurst United Church, a faith community recently profiled by Facebook as an international community leader. In this capacity Murray supports 2SLGBTQIA+ individuals and their families on their faith journeys, providing pastoral care and resourcing for many, including conversion therapy survivors and LGBTQ+ refugees fleeing violence.

Murray was the first resident artist at the Institute for Art, Religion and Social Justice at Union Theological Seminary, NY, and has exhibited internationally (including MoMA NYC, and Witte de With, NL). A long-time collaborator with The Only Animal, and Green Fools Theatre, Murray projected video on ice and snow in a giant outdoor dome for The Only Animal’s NiX, and on 100 ft tall trees in one of Vancouver’s urban parks for Out On a Limb, created new puppet-musicals Once Upon an Atom Bomb, and Elephant Song with the Green Fools, and in 2014 won the Jessie Richardson award for Outstanding Achievement in Integrated Design with The Only Animal for Nothing But Sky. Murray, is thrilled to be developing this new play with Pacific Theatre, bringing to life the historical stories of queer mystics from the Christian tradition.

Murray, is a descendent of European immigrants and refugees who settled at the intersection of the Bow and Elbow rivers at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, in the area known as Mohkínstsis, Wincheesh-pah, Guts’ists’I, otôskwanihk (ᐅᑑᐢᑿᓂᕽ), or Calgary, Alberta. They continue to live here as a member of Treaty 7, with the traditional keepers and treaty signatories: the Niitsitapi (Siksika, Piikani and Kainai Nations) the Tsuut’ina Nation and the Iyarhe Nakoda (Wesley, Chiniki and Bearspaw Nations) as well as the Metis Nation of Alberta (Region III). Murray is committed towards justice and (re)conciliation with communities of first peoples, and in dismantling systems of inequity affecting all of us sharing these lands.

In between their ministry, research and writing, they love exploring the prairie valleys with their 1-year-old German Shepherd, Dolly Pawton.

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Kathy Parsons

Kathy received her BFA from York University in Creative Ensemble and Playwrighting and, thanks to Pacific Theatre’s sponsorship of her, she studied Dramaturgy at Simon Fraser University. Kathy has a 16 year relationship with Pacific Theatre through acting, directing and dramaturgy. She was PT’s Literary Manager for several years where she focused on new play development, dramaturgy and script reading.

Some of her favorite writing projects include The Sea and Crazy Eights (PT’s 24 hour theatre festival), A Good Mother (PT’s Staged reading series), Escape Artists I (Vancouver Fringe Festival), and The Hitchhiker (Jason Goode’s Indie movie which won best screenplay at the Global ComedyFest). She is a playwright for Eastside Story Guild (a children and youth theatre program at Grandview church) and has various other writing projects on the go.

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Tina Teeninga