THIS IS AN ARCHIVE OF AN EVENT THAT HAS ALREADY HAPPENED.
Springboards Cabaret 2023
Sunday, March 26, 7:30 PM
About the Springboards Cabaret:
In celebration of World Theatre Day, this smash-hit smorgasbord of artistry features the talent and skill of Albertan writers—close to home and beyond—and their freshest works in progress. This cheeky and cheerful evening of new play excerpts, delivered with maximum imagination and verve, is not to be missed.
The Playwrights
Trevor Duplessis’s select theatre credits include: Space / Space (Northern Light Theatre), In a World Created by a Drunken God (Theatre Arts Generator, Theatre Aquarius, Theatre Orangeville, Eastern European Tour), and Cottagers & Indians (Shadow Theatre). Film credits include: the movie adaptation of In a World Created by a Drunken God (Best Actor American Indian Film Festival, Gemini Nomination), a series regular on Blackstone (APTN/Prairie Dog Film), and the feature Hey, Viktor! Trevor is a graduate of the University of Alberta’s BFA Acting program, and has an MFA in Creative Writing from the Institute of American Indian Arts. He lives in Edmonton and teaches at Yellowhead Tribal College and The Learning Centre Literacy Association.
Trevor Duplessis
Jacqueline Lamb is delighted to have an excerpt from her play-in-process Forgive Me presented at Springboards 2023. Jacqueline’s plays have been produced in Edmonton’s festivals since the mid 1990’s including Springboards at WWPT, Cradle to Stage at Walterdale, ADFA’s Stage Struck!, Varscona Theatre, and The Fringe. Her favourites include Songbird, Lunatic, Guido’s Sweet Vendetta, and Before I Met Tatenda, the latter winning the Outstanding New Work award at Stage Struck! Jacqueline has also stage managed, directed, and provided sound design for her productions. In addition to theatre, her non-fiction essay God Only Lends Us His Angels was published in The Edmonton Journal and Dreamer’s Magazine. She is also working on two novels whose working titles are Jack and Mack, Reluctant Saturday Psychopomps and Gary’s Tulpa. Her work often dives deeply into themes that make people squirm... in a good, necessary way. She is also a federal public servant.
Jacqueline Lamb
Sabrina Samuel (she/her) resides on Treaties 6 & 7 in Red Deer, Alberta. Last year she was named Emerging Artist of the Year by the Red Deer Arts Council. The Writers Union of Canada selected her as one of thirty Canadians for the BIPOC Writers Connect mentorship. She is active in community building through Soroptimist International of Central Alberta, Pride, Red Deer Public Library board and ACCOCA.ca. Her online wellness page, Surrender Living, explores mental health and creativity through the lens of lived experiences.
Sabrina Samuel
Naomi Duska is an emerging playwright, director, and performer who recently completed her BFA in Theatre and Writing at the University of Victoria. Her work explores themes of human connection and heartbreak, blending the bittersweet with the hilarious. She aims to twist lines between genres by filtering classic tropes through a queer lens. Her plays Her There, Mr. Moon and Reset have been produced by UVic’s SATCo, and her short stories have been featured in This Side of West Issue 16 and Tap Press Read 135. In February, she was the Artist in Residence in the North Park Studio at the Vancouver Street Plaza. She is thankful to have had the opportunity to workshop Manikin with Edmonton playwright Jason Chinn, through Alberta Theatre Projects’ 2021 RBC Playwright Mentorship Program, and with the fantastic group of writers at the Belfry Theatre’s 2022 Creator’s Circle.
naomi Duska
Taanishi kiyawâw, Danielle LaRose dishinikashoon. I am a multidisciplinary theatre artist of Métis/Settler heritage based out of Amiskwacîwâskahikan. After graduating with my MA from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, I lived and worked in the UK for several years before moving back to Turtle Island in 2015. My first love was music, and it is the music of poetic verse that drew me to my great passion for the classics. However, our current classical tradition is not an easy place for women to make our voices heard. During the pandemic, I resolved to write a full-length classical epic that would center the stories of vibrant warrior women and help to create a more empowering and inclusive classical tradition. I wish to thank The Tiger’s Hearts Collective and all the women who have supported The Amazonomachy along the way. You are my warriors, my muses, and this is your song. Isocratiai!
Danielle LaRose
Celia Taylor is a playwright and theatre artist, originally from Edmonton and currently based in Vancouver. She is the founder and artistic director of Edmonton theatre company, Empress of Blandings Productions. Previous writing credits include: The Flying Doctor and Onions and Garlic for Empress of Blandings; Pseudolus for Mainline Theatre; The Coronet Caper for Story City; and Civis Sum for Hapax Theatre. She is also the writer and director of the narrative mystery podcast Hardboiled, named one of Edmonton’s top podcasts by YegVentures and acclaimed by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Deepa Mehta as “so bright and so bloody smart.” In 2017, Celia was named one of the top 25 emerging artists in Alberta by the Alberta Foundation for the Arts. She holds a BA in theatre from McGill University and a Juris Doctor from the University of Victoria law school. She will be called to the bar in May.
Celia Taylor
Gavin Dyer is a performer, writer, and producer, born and raised in Edmonton. He’s super jazzed to be part of the WWPT Springboards Festival and loves nothing more than being surrounded by inspiring artists. Gavin is a new writer and gathers inspiration for his writing online, from what he’d call the “armpits” of the internet. Selected theatre credits include: Civil Blood (Thou Art Here), Michael Mysterious (Pyretic Productions), Counterfeit Families (Citadel Young Playwrights Company), The Birds (George Brown), Munsch Goes to School, (George Brown), Diametric (Frame Productions), Concord Floral (Citadel Young Company), A Christmas Carol and Romeo and Juliet (Citadel Theatre), and Rent (Scona Theatre Co).
Gavin Dyer
Nicole Moeller is an Edmonton-based writer. Her plays include Without You, An Almost Perfect Thing, The Mothers, The Preacher, The Princess and a Crow, and The Ballad of Peachtree Rose. She was a contributor to The Mommy Monologues and This is YEG. Nicole is the recipient of the Outstanding New Play Sterling Award, the Gwen Pharis Ringwood Award for Drama, Germany's New Canadian Play Competition official selection and Alberta Theatre Projects’ Enbridge Established Playwright Award. Her work has also been seen in England, Germany, Czech Republic, and Australia. Nicole has been playwright-in-residence at Azimuth Theatre and Workshop West Playwrights’ Theatre, and her work has been part of Nightwood Theatre’s Groundswell Festival. She is a graduate of MacEwan’s Journalism and Theatre Arts programs. You can find her short fiction on a coffee cup or beer can, near you.
Nicole Moeller
Cat Walsh is an award-winning performer and playwright. Her most recent play Do This in Memory of Me premiered in a bilingual co-production by Northern Light Theatre and L’Unithéatre and was published by Playwrights Canada Press in Fall 2021. She was also the playwright for Theatre Yes’ national site-specific collaboration Anxiety. Cat’s other plays include The Laws of Thermodynamics (Elizabeth Sterling Haynes Nomination – Outstanding New Play). Her solo thriller Eleven-Oh-Four received an Elizabeth Sterling Haynes nomination for Outstanding New Play at the Fringe, and Cat was awarded the Sterling for Outstanding Performance by an Actress at the Fringe. Her quantum-inspired play Fetch was a finalist for the Gwen Pharis Ringwood Award, as well as a Sterling nominee for Outstanding New Play at the Fringe. Her work has also been seen in The Mommy Monologues (SkirtsaFire Festival), Toronto’s Women at Play(s) Festival, and at SKAMpede in Victoria. Cat is currently working on a new solo show about memory.
Cat Walsh
Linda Grass is an Edmonton-based stage, film, television, voice actor, and nascent playwright. Locally, she has appeared onstage with Northern Light Theatre, Shadow Theatre, Workshop West Theatre, Theatre Network, Teatro La Quindicina, The Citadel Theatre, as well as other smaller companies. As a writer, her early cringe-worthy efforts at poetry and short stories appeared in university publications. She has written two pilots for episodic television, I, Miss Lisa, and River City, the latter of which she is hoping to turn into a podcast. After Eve was originally just one monologue intended to be part of a writers' project initiated by Trevor Schmidt for The Edmonton International Fringe Festival, but it is now a triptych. It was performed at Script Salon in June 2022.
Linda Grass
Shawn Marshall has been acting and writing all his life, starring in numerous high school plays and then taking his passion for drama to the University of Alberta where he graduated with an Education Degree with a Drama major. Realizing that is where his passion lay, he sought after all the information he could from peers and professionals and wrote Clawfoot, which debuted at the 32nd annual Edmonton International Fringe Festival and was met with high praise from audiences every night. He and Amy Hayduk have started Abandon All Anecdotes Theatre Company to bring these plays to life and have since presented five other original plays at The Edmonton Fringe Festival: Blind Eye for an Eye, Canvas: A Story of the Forgotten, How Does That Make You Feel, and JoyRide. All these were met with high praise from critics and audiences alike. He is very excited to be back!
Shawn Marshall
The Creative Team
Darrin Hagen
Curator
Davina Stewart is an award winning actress, improviser, director and graduate of the U of A’s BFA Acting program. She’s been fortunate to have worked with many of Edmonton’s theatre companies selected credits include; Sexy Laundry (Mayfield Dinner Theatre) Cottagers and Indians, Vanya, Sonia, Mash and Spike (Shadow Theatre); Squeamish, Something Unspoken, (Northern Light Theatre); Pia & Maria (Concrete Theatre); Unsung: Tales from the Front Line, Witch Hunt At The Strand (Workshop West Theatre) Cocktails At Pam’s, Pith (Teatro Quindicina); Marion Bridge, A Beautiful View (Theatre Network); BitchSlap! (Guys In Disguise); An Ideal Husband (Citadel Theatre). Recent directing credits include: The Hunchback Variations, All In The Timing, Sure Thing, Salsa Lesson (Edmonton Fringe), and Prettier Woman (Spotlight).
Davina Stewart
Director
April Banigan’s theatre credits include: The Last Train and Boston Marriage (Shadow Theatre); Blood Oranges and Silence (Northern Light Theatre), The Blue Light and My One and Only (Workshop West Theatre); See How They Run (Mayfield Theatre); The Constant Wife, A Christmas Carol, Death of a Salesman and The Silver Arrow (Citadel Theatre); E Day (Serial Collective); and Fever Land (Teatro). TV credits include: Alfred Hitchcock Presents; Street Justice and Media Sense; and the feature film A Louder Silence (Rosie nomination). She voices video game characters in the Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age, and Neverwinter Nights. April is co-founder of DogHeart Theatre. (https://doghearttheatre.ca/) She directed the narration of the CBC TV series’ The Perfect Runner, The Great Human Odyssey and Equus; story of the horse. April recently appeared in the North American Premiere of Mischief Theatre’s Peter Pan Goes Wrong at the Citadel Theatre with a subsequent run at Vancouver’s Arts Club Theatre.
APRIL BANIGAN
ACTOR
Michelle Diaz (she/they) is a Filipino-Canadian actor and performer based in Edmonton, Alberta where she graduated from MacEwan University’s Theatre Arts program in 2016. Theatre credits include: Sister Act (Mayfield Dinner Theatre); Women on The Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Plain Jane Theatre Company); The Finest of Strangers, For the Love of Cynthia (Teatro la Quindicina); Tune to A, The Snow Queen (Azimuth Theatre); SISTERS (The Fox Den Collective); Safe & Fair: Scene at Work, Working It Out, THAT’S DANGER! (Alberta Workers' Health Centre); and The Bully Project (Concrete Theatre).
MICHELLE DIAZ
ACTOR
Jade Robinson is a mixed-race artist who was born and raised in amiskwacîwâskahikan (colonially known as Edmonton) on Treaty 6 territory. She received her BFA in Acting from the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) and is a National Gold Medalist in Canada for Speech Arts & Drama Performance. Select credits include: Smoke (Tiny Bear Jaws), Unsung: Tales from the Front Line (Workshop West), Hecuba (Bleviss Theatre), Monkey King (Enrichment Works), Appropriate (CalArts), Wake Up (Cut:Thru Media), Georgie Romero is Done For (Shea & Greenberg Podcasts), and Phantom Limb: Falling Out (Center for New Performance).
JADE ROBINSON
Actor
Mark Sinongco (he/him) is a proud Filipino-Canadian actor and a graduate of the Canadian College of Performing Arts. He was last seen as Karl and various characters in Grindstone Theatre’s Die Harsh: A Christmas Musical. He is very excited to be part of the Springboards Festival this year! Maraming salamat to everyone who made this possible! Some previous credits include: Tobias in Sweeney Todd (Plain Jane Theatre), Ricky Potts in Ride the Cyclone (Uniform Theatre and SATCo), Tyler Shandro in Jason Kennedy’s Hot Boy Summer (Grindstone Theatre), Velociraptor of Innocence in Triassic Parq (Uniform Theatre), and Cosmo Brown in Singin’ in the Rain (Festival Place).
MARK SINONGCO
Actor
Sheldon Stockdale is an actor from Edmonton Alberta. He is a graduate from the University of Alberta's BFA in Acting. His recent credits include Unsung (Workshop West Playwrights’ Theatre) Bear Grease (Indigenous Angels); Fags in Space (Low Hanging Fruit); A Midsummer Night's Dream (Lodestar Theatre). Sheldon is pleased to be back for this year’s Springboards New Play Festival!