Artistic Team 2021
Danielle Irvine
Artistic Director, Director: Hamlet
Artistic Director, Director: Hamlet
Danielle Irvine is a proud Newfoundlander who has had to travel a lot for her work. Highlights of her career include teaching at the National Theatre School of Canada; Assistant Directing at the Stratford Festival of Canada (including being the first director to study in their Birmingham Conservatory); and winning such awards as the Canada Council for the Arts prestigious John Hirsch Prize for Directing, the ArtsNL BMO Artist of the Year, and the ArtsNL Artist’s Achievement Award 2019. Danielle was also a participant in the World Stage Festival 2000’s Master Class for Directors; where she was honoured to study with such theatre greats as Peter Brook, Yoshi Oida and Polly Teale. In the fall of 2016, she was invited to participate in the inaugural Stratford Festival’s International Classical Directing Intensive. For over 25 years, she has been directing theatrical productions of all sizes and types in all manner of venues. Her love and passion for Newfoundland culture combined with her theatre training inspired Danielle to co-develop a show with Anna Stassis which brought audiences through a theatrical experience on a bus, a ferry, around Bell Island and culminated 650 feet underground in a mine. This was listed by the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres as a Landmark Theatrical Event in 1997. She has also been a key note speaker and workshop leader at various conferences over the years and is also a casting director for television and film. Credits include: CBC’s Republic of Doyle; the Netflix series, Frontier; the CBC Series, LittleDog; the CBC mini-series, Caught; the Citytv Series, Hudson and Rex; and the feature film, Maudie. Recently, she has been nominated for a YWCA Woman of Distinction for Arts and Culture Award and a Canadian Screen Award for Excellence in Casting for Frontier. Since 2014, Danielle has been bringing her love of Newfoundland culture and community, together with her passion for Shakespeare and other timeless theatre in her role as the Artistic Director of Perchance Theatre at Cupids. She hopes you enjoy this most precious return to live performance.
Todd Hennessey
Director: As You Like It
Director: As You Like It
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Todd Hennessey has a BFA (Acting), MFA (Directing) and a PhD (Shakespeare Studies), and is currently the Dean, School of Fine Arts, Grenfell Campus (MUNL). As a director, Todd has worked for Rising Tide Theatre, Theatre Newfoundland Labrador, The Stephenville Theatre Festival, Hard Ticket Theatre, Resource Centre for the Arts, the Newfoundland Arts and Culture Centres, First Light Productions, and others. This is Todd’s first season with Perchance!
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Lois Brown
Director: Our Eliza
Director: Our Eliza
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Lois Brown was born in Corner Brook, Newfoundland. Educated in Drama at the University of Alberta, she returned to St. John’s, where she established a cross-disciplinary artistic practice. She is an original member and past Curator of Neighbourhood Dance Works, and past AD of RCA Theatre Company at the LSPU Hall. In 2005, The Canada Council for the Arts awarded her The Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award for Outstanding Achievement in Theatre by a Mid-Career Canadian Artist. In 2010 to 2013, Lois was Artist and Dramaturg in Residence at Playwrights’ Workshop Montréal. In 2014, she received the YWCA’s Women of Distinction Goodwill Award for her contribution to the arts locally and nationally. In 2019, she was also inducted into Dance Collection Danse Encore! Dance Hall of Fame. Lois holds a Master’s from Memorial where she has taught acting and directing. Her current artistic interests are dramaturgy, improvisation and democratization, island studies and disability arts aesthetics and processes.
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Megan Gail Coles
Playwright: Our Eliza
Playwright: Our Eliza
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Megan Gail Coles is a graduate of Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador, the National Theatre School of Canada, and the University of British Columbia. She is the Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Poverty Cove Theatre Company, for which she has written numerous award-winning plays. Her debut short fiction collection, Eating Habits of the Chronically Lonesome, won the BMO Winterset Award and the Margaret and John Savage First Book Award, and earned her the Writers’ Trust of Canada 5×5 Prize. Her debut novel, Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club, was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and a contender for CBC Canada Reads, and recently won the BMO Winterset Award. Originally from Savage Cove on the Great Northern Peninsula of the island of Newfoundland/Ktaqmkuk, Megan currently lives in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, where she is the Executive Director of Riddle Fence and a Ph.D. candidate at Concordia University. Megan's debut poetry collection, Satched, is forthcoming from House of Anansi this fall.
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Alison Helmer
Set Designer: As You Like It, Hamlet
Set Designer: As You Like It, Hamlet
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Alison Helmer is a multidisciplinary artist who has been deeply and continuously influenced by her studies and experience working on the east coast. Though born and raised on the prairies, she began her theatre education with the Stagecraft program at Grenfell college before completing the Scenography program at the National Theatre School of Canada. She approaches the world of both set and costume design through a lens of fantasy, history, and the tradition of storytelling. She is excited by Theatre that pushes the boundaries between conventional and experimental, and that seeks to fulfill our human search for truth, escape, and shared connection.
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Tucker Ellis
Costume Designer: As You Like It, Hamlet
Costume Designer: As You Like It, Hamlet
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Tucker Ellis is a costume and clothing designer based out of St. John’s, NL. Tucker grew up in a small community in central Newfoundland, and has had an active interest and training in musical theatre from an early age. After wandering from home and landing permanently in St. John’s in their late teens, Tucker attended the Textile and Apparel Design program at the College of the North Atlantic and graduated with first class honours, returning for a third year of extended study focusing on pattern construction. Since leaving the program they have played an active role in the St. John’s theatre community. Tucker has worked as lead costume designer with Perchance Theatre Company, Holy Heart Theatre Company, Atlantic Light Theatre Company, and AOR Theatre Company. In addition to theatre, Tucker works independently as a clothing designer under the name alittleglitch. alittleglitch was featured at multiple fashion shows across the country. Tucker also maintains an active role in the local craft community, having built textile art pieces for various shows for the Craft Council of Newfoundland and Labrador. Tucker is excited to be back with the Perchance team this summer, helping to reimagine and bring to life the world of Hamlet and As You Like It.
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Connie Walsh
Costume Designer: Our Eliza
Costume Designer: Our Eliza
Barry Buckle
Costume Design Assistant
Costume Design Assistant
Ryan Wilcox
Sound Design: As You Like It, Hamlet
Sound Design: As You Like It, Hamlet
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Ryan Wilcox (they/them) is a white, nonbinary theatre creator based out of Kjipuktuk, colonially known as Halifax, Nova Scotia. Ryan graduated from the National Theatre School of Canada from the Production Design and Technical Arts program, where they focused on stage management, lighting, and sound. Ryan’s focus is creating theatre with equity seeking artists from all walks of life. After their time with Perchance, Ryan is producing devised theatre about the actualisation of queer identities, and the harm that they tolerate when accepting love.
Selected Credits: Sound Design: Little Thing Big Thing (Neptune Theatre), PEACE Project (Transitus Theatre), Romeo and Juliet (NTS), Coram Boy (FSPA), Stage Management: For the Taking, Don’t Misunderstand Me (FAST), Colors of Courage (Anthony Sherwood Productions), Nell Gwynn, Indra’s Web, Romeo and Juliet (NTS) |
George Robertson
Sound Design: Our Eliza
Sound Design: Our Eliza
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George Robertson is an actor, musician, and sound designer living in St John's. He has worked in some or all of these capacities with many theatre companies in Newfoundland and Labrador, including Perchance Theatre, RCA Theatre Company, PerSIStence Theatre, Rising Tide Theatre Company, New Curtain Theatre, Poverty Cove Theatre Company, Kanutu Theatre, Open Theatre Company, Shakespeare By The Sea, and others. He has also appeared in several locally produced film and television projects.
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Azal Dosanjh
Assistant Director: Hamlet
Assistant Director: Hamlet
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Azal Dosanjh is a theatre artist from India, now residing in St. John's, Newfoundland. He is a graduate of the Stage and Screen Technique Diploma from Memorial University of Newfoundland. His recent directing credits include Burrow by Robyn Vivian, Until Death Do Us Part by Prajwala Dixit, The Boor, and The Proposal by Anton Chekhov. His recent acting credits include Log Kya Kahenge by Prajwal Dixit and Metamorphoses by Mary Zimmerman. Azal is currently adapting and developing a series of stage political satires originally written by Gursharan Singh, in a collection entitled Politically Relative.
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