Munish Sharma is an actor, writer, and dancer.
Originally from Regina Saskatchewan, Munish has called Vancouver home for over a decade.
He is one of the creators of I Can't Believe it's Not Butter Chicken. One of Canada's first South Asian Sketch comedy groups. His first one-act play, Mrs. Singh and Me, premiered at the 2015 Vancouver Fringe Festival and was one of the plays awarded with the " Pick of the Fringe" award. Munish also received a Jessie Award nomination in 2016 for his work on Pi Theatre's production of The Invisible Hand. He is currently is working on his second show, Danceboy, and is an ongoing Pi Artistic Associate.
Recent credits include; A Thousand Splendid Suns (Arts Club), All's Well that Ends Well (Bard n the Beach), The Orchard (After Chekhov) (Arts Club), The Matchmaker (Arts Club), Bombay Black (Raghupriya Arts and Culture), Victim Impact (Theatre Conspiracy).
Instagram @munisharma.com
Maria Zarrillo is an Equity Stage Manager, freelance Producer, and Digital Arts Marketer based in Vancouver, BC. They have worked with a variety of companies in these capacities including Pi Theatre, Pacific Theatre, Nightswimming Theatre, Cahoots Theatre, rice & beans theatre, Delinquent Theatre, Vancouver Opera, and Vancouver Asian Canadian, where they also spent a year as the Operations Assistant. Maria was the Associate Artistic Manager of Pi Theatre for the 2018-19 season. She is a graduate of Studio 58.
Mishelle is composer and theatre artist with a particular passion for music in theatre. After 5 years as a composer, sound designer, performer, and music director in Vancouver, Mishelle moved to New York where she obtained an MFA in Musical Theatre Composition at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. She returned to beautiful British Columbia in June, 2017 full of inspiration and ready to make more music
Mishelle composed and performed in STATIONARY: a recession-era musical, which has seen several productions since its inception, including a run at the Cultch that garnered Jessies for Outstanding Composition and Outstanding Musical. She has designed sound throughout Vancouver, and her original work has been performed from BC to Ontario to New York City. This season she will be working with companies such as Neworld, Rumble, Théatre la Seizième, Ruby Slippers and ITSAZOO. In addition to her win for STATIONARY, Mishelle is a multiple Jessie nominee, and recipient of a Horace W. Goldsmith Fellowship at NYU. She has a BFA in Acting from UBC.
Anais is a queer actor, playwright and theatre producer. She wrote and produced Kill Your Lovers (created with video-designer Shauna Grifiin), which was presented at Buddies In Bad Times Theatre’s Rhubarb Festival in Toronto, and Fresh Fruit Festival in New York City. She is a co-producer for the Virago Play Series, an initiative she began with Alexandra Lainfiesta, Carmela Sison and Kayla Deorksen that develops and produces new work by female and femme playwrights. Virago's first series of staged readings will be presented at the Firehall Arts Centre in 2018. As an actor, Anais has worked with Rumble Theatre’s Tremors Festival, Carousel Theatre for Young People, the PuSh Festival and the Arts Club. Next up, she will be appearing in the Only Animal's production of SLIME, in Vancouver and at the Banff Centre. She is also creating a new slam poetry musical with actor/musician Sara Vickruck, Poly Queer Love Ballad. Anais is a graduate of the acting program at Studio 58.
Katey is a Vancouver-based actor and writer. As a playwright, she co-wrote The Surrealists, Karaoke: The Musical (Studio 58), The After Party, The New Years Party (Pull Fest), The Bush Party, The Tie Breaker (Theatre SKAM). Recently, Katey and her partner in crime, Cheyenne Mabberley, wrote and performed in the acclaimed The After After Party which received Pick of the Fringe, The Georiga Straight Critic's Award, and will be featured in The Cultch's 2017/2018 season. Last November, her coming-of-age play, Green Lake, was produced by Solo Collective and nominated for 6 Jessie Richardson Awards including Outstanding Production.
As an actor, Katey has worked for companies such as Green Thumb, Carousel, Caravan Farms, Arts Club, Solo Collective, Yogurt, and ATP, and this year you can see her on ABC's When We Rise as well as Nickelodeon's Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library. Katey is a Betty Mitchell nominee, Calgary Critic's Award winner, recipient of the Touchstone Theatre and Jennifer Wade Scholarships, and a graduate of Studio 58.
Cheyenne is an actress, comedian, and writer from Vancouver BC. Classically trained at Canada's renowned Studio 58, Cheyenne has met with critical acclaim for her roles in The 13th Chair, Edge of Seventeen, and Ree. She holds the distinguished Rich Euchis Plaque of Excellence in Acting and was the recipient of the Gertrude Langridge Award Scholarship in 2012. Cheyenne is best known for her show, The After After Party that garnered her notoriety throughout Vancouver’s theatre community by picking up the Critic's Award (The Georgia Straight), Cultchivating Award (The Cultch), as well as Vancouver's Pick of the Fringe for 2016.
An advocate for women in the arts, Cheyenne is focused on fostering new female work, including grant assistance and marketing for The Virago Play Series and her own not-for-profit organization, After Party Theatre Society. Her produced plays include Karaoke: The Musical (Studio 58), The New Years Party, The After Party (Pull Festival, Speakeasy Theatre) and The Tiebreaker, The Bush Party (Theatre SKAM). Cheyenne is committed to writing fierce, female forward plays with heart. Her recent collaboration with Pi Theatres’ Provocateurs Series has granted her four uncensored, unabashed, all-female satirical comedic presentations throughout Pi’s 2017/2018 season.
Cheyenne is also a successful makeup FX artist, costume designer, and scenic painter, having worked for incredible Vancouver professional companies such as The Arts Club (Angels in America), Pacific Theatre (The Whipping Man), Green Thumb (Land of Trash), Pi (Blasted, The Invisible Hand), and ITSAZOO (The Competition is Fierce, Hidden).
Recently, Cheyenne appeared in a guest role on Bravo's The Imposters as well as the French-Canadian medical mystery series, Maux Mysteries.
Amy Lee Lavoie is an award-winning playwright and a graduate of the National Theatre School of Canada’s Playwriting Program.
Her first play, Rabbit Rabbit, was initially conceived in her first year at NTS, and was part of Infinitheatre’s Pipeline series, CanStage’s Ideas and Creation Festival, SummerWorks and the Edmonton Fringe. It received its premiere production with Infinitheatre, earning Amy two MECCA’s for Best Text and the Revelation Award. Rabbit Rabbit was also produced by Poverty Cove Theatre and Ghostlight Theatre.
Amy Lee was a Canada Council Playwright-in-Residence at Factory Theatre, a member of Factory’s Natural Resources creation group, part of the Playwriting Forum at Citadel Theatre, and a member of Cahoots Theatre’s Playwrights’ Hothouse. In 2013, Amy was part of the Tarragon Playwriting Unit, a member of the Stratford Festival Playwright’s Retreat, and, in that same year, her play, Stopheart, premiered at Factory Theatre.
In 2014, Amy Lee was the Head Digital Writer for the CBC drama Strange Empire, which won a Gracie Award (Women’s Alliance Media) for Best Website in recognition of its interactive storytelling. She is currently working on a new play, C’mon, Angie!, and her original television series, Under Millhaven Sky, is currently in development with Reality Distortion Field (RDF).
Up next, Amy Lee will be opening Playwrights’ Workshop Montreal’s 2017/18 season with a workshop production of her play, A Place for Us.
Jeff Gladstone grew up in Calgary, earning a BFA Drama and joining the Loose Moose Theatre Company, which launched him into the local theatre scene. Since moving to Vancouver, he has performed in many celebrated projects in independent and regional theatre, film & television.
Jeff has performed on stages across Canada including four seasons at Bard on the Beach, Chemainus Theatre Festival, Vancouver Playhouse, Arts Club Theatre, Theatre Calgary, Citadel Theatre, Prairie Theatre Exchange and many independent companies. He’s performed new work in festivals such as High Performance Rodeo, PuSh, Summerworks and Rhubarb Festival in Toronto, NYMF and Fresh Fruit Festival in New York.
His feature film debut was playing John D Rockefeller III in the USA/German co-production Drawing Home (MYRA). Television appearances include roles in The Twilight Zone, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, The Killing, iZombie, Motive, and Second Chance. Media appearances include actor, director and producer on The Life Game for CBC National Radio, voice and mo-cap on the 3D animated feature Mighty Mighty Monsters for BRON, and Stan Douglas’ CIRCA 1948: Hotel Vancouver, a radio play and interactive media hybrid project for the National Film Board of Canada. Recently, he played a lead role and was a producer on Bruce Sweeney’s feature film Kingsway, which premiered at TIFF (2018) and VIFF (2018) receiving 10 Leo Award Nominations and 1 Actra award win for lead actress, Camille Sullivan.
Jeff is known for playing dark and complex characters, his musical skills on voice guitar & bass, and his improvisation performing and teaching that has taken him across the globe. Jeff is the current Artistic Director of the International TheatreSports Institute.
Pippa Mackie is an award-winning actor, playwright and producer based in Vancouver, BC. Since graduating from the National Theatre School of Canada in 2009, Pippa has worked as an actor with the Arts Club, Gateway Theatre, Belfry Theatre, Pi Theatre, Rumble Theatre, Firehall Arts Centre, Delinquent Theatre, Greenthumb theatre, Theatre Replacement and many more. Pippa originated the role of ‘Leap’ in Rumble Theatre’s ‘The Society of the Destitute presents: Titus Bouffonius’ written by Colleen Murphy, which earned her and the ensemble a Jessie Richardson award for ‘Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble’. Most recently she played title role of Pinocchio in Theatre Replacement’s East Van Panto production of PINOCCHIO by Marcus Youssef. She was also the Vancouver Sun’s and the Georgia Straight’s ‘Artist to Watch’. A select number of her film/tv credits include: Supernatural (CW), Van Helsing (Sci-Fi), Hell on Wheels (AMC), Roadies (Showtime), and supporting lead roles in feature films #Roxy and Christmas Solo. In 2019 Pippa was nomination for a Canadian Comedy Award ‘Best Performance in a Feature’ for her role as ‘Bronwyn’ in Feature Film #Roxy (now available on US Netflix, iTunes, Amazon and more.)
As a writer, Pippa’s work has been featured and performed on stages and at festivals across Canada. She works primarily in the style of what she calls ‘reclamation comedy’. She is particularly interested in the re-imagining of women’s stories through satire. By reclamation, she means incorporation. 6 of her one act plays have been produced and performed at Speakeasy Theatre’s Pull Festival including her dark comedy Deer Harper which was also part of the Shift Festival in Vancouver and has since been published as part of Pull Festival Anthology. In 2019 she wrote one act play Starman as part of Upintheair Theatre’s commissioning series The Array . She is currently adapting her one-woman dark comedy Truance, about unfair sex laws in the US, into a feature length screenplay.
Pippa is a true collaborator, having co-created and performed three Fringe Festival hits including The Progressive Polygamists (with Emmelia Gordon) which has been performed across Canada over 100 times to sold out houses everywhere, had a professional production at the Firehall Arts Centre, won 3 Pick of the Fringe Awards and was part of the 2015 Just For Laughs Festival in Montreal. Her other fringe hit Industry: the Food Must Go Out (co-written with Nik Bunting and Lauren Jackson) won the Vancouver Fringe Festival Award for Innovation. Most recently, she co-wrote Juliet: A Revenge Comedy with Monster Theatre’s Ryan Gladstone which toured Fringe Festivals in 2019 and will tour again the summer of 2021.
In January 2019, Pippa went to England to work with award-winning (Pleasance Indie Award for Best Theatre Show and Samuel Beckett Award shortlist) UK writer/performer Kit Redstone (Testosterone) on their new play The Garden: a wickedly dark and impishly mischievous reclamation of the Adam and Eve story.
Pippa has also created and produced a number of cabaret style performances including: LOST WORDS, an event series focused on banned, censored and contentious artistic works, co-curated with Jeff Gladstone and produced with Pi Theatre. PITCH, BITCH, OR DITCH was co-created with artist Kim Senklip Harvey and produced as part of the 2019 Femme Series at the Cultch.
Pippa’s directing credits include: After Party Theatre’s Lady Parts (rEvolver Festival ‘19; Pi Theatre; National Arts Centre Canada Performs Series), ‘Clio: A Giant Clitoris Puppet Learning To Love Herself (Puppets Not Patriarchy, Art of Loving) and re-mounted production of Distractingly Sexy by Mily Mumford (rEvolver Festival ’18).
She is the former Artistic Associate with Pi Theatre, the current Associate Producer with Upintheair Theatre, and a playwright with the Arts Club Theatre Company’s Emerging Playwrights Unit.
Pippa acknowledges that her work takes place on the unceded territories of the Coast Salish peoples, including the territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.
