Alumni News

Summer, 2009

Many of our UVic Theatre students and alumni will be busy this summer thanks to the arrival of Victoria’s newest professional theatre company Blue Bridge Repertory Theatre. Blue Bridge Repertory Theatre’s inaugural summer season supports their mandate to mentor emerging theatre artists by working alongside some of Canada’s top theatre artists.

Their first play, As You Like It by William Shakespeare (June 9-21, 2009) is directed by acclaimed Canadian director, Jeanette Lambermont-Morey. It will feature Phoenix graduates Rielle Braid (BFA '09) (photo top), Brian Culp (BFA '09) and Victor Dolhai (BFA '07) and showcase current Phoenix talent Matthew Coulson, Alex Plouffe, Brian Wrigley and Sean Sager who will be acting alongside Sessional Instructor Fran Gebhard.

The lighting will be designed by Giles Hogya, former Dean of Fine Arts at UVic, and the sound design will be by Yan Li, graduate of the UVic Music Department. Also on the creative team are alumni Treena Stubel (BFA'95) (movement and choreography) and Partick Du Wors (BFA '02) (costume design). Phoenix audiences will remember Patrick's inspired set and costume design of last fall's Dark of the Moon. He will also be designing the set for Blue Bridge’s other two summer shows Death of a Salesman and The Fantasticks.

Death of a Salesman (July 7-19, 2009) by Arthur Miller will be directed by professor Brian Richmond, former chair of the UVic Theatre Department, and will feature award-winning Toronto actor and Phoenix alumnus David Ferry (MFA '04) (photo left) as the well-known character of Willy Loman. Other alumni also featured are Victor Dolhai (BFA '07), Jay Hindle (BFA '03) and Carey Wass (BFA '08) as well as past theatre student Jacob Richmond and current student Samantha Richard. Reknowned actor and retired UVic professor John Krich will play the part of Ben Loman. UVic sessional instructor Kerem Cetinel is the lighting designer for the production while previous theatre student and fashion designer Kristin Bond is the costume designer.

Blue Bridge's final show this summer will be the delightful musicalThe Fantasticks, (August 4-16, 2009) directed by Phoenix alumna and Co-Creator of Atomic Vaudeville, Britt Small (MFA Directing ’04). The Fantasticks will feature Victor Dolhai (BFA '07) (photo right), Sarah Pelzer (BFA '09), Jacob Richmond, Treena Stubel (BFA '95) and Chris Wilson (BFA '08). Current theatre student Michael Franzman will return from a stint at the Stratford Festival to design the lighting the show and alumna Ingrid Hansen (BFA '09) will design the costumes.