Company Bios
ANNA CHATTERTON is a performer, playwright and librettist. She was recently nominated for a Dora Award for Best Opera/Musical for Stitch and was a nominee for the KM Hunter Award in Theatre twice. She is currently writing a full-length opera, Donna (with composer James Rolfe), commissioned by the Canadian Opera Company as a mainstage production slated for 2011-12 at the Four Seasons Opera House—their first new opera at that venue. She also works as a librettist with the company urbanvessel, working closely with composer Juliet Palmer. Their shows are always multi-disciplinary, involving opera singers, choreographers, dancers, visual artists, and theatre directors. Upcoming they will be working on a new piece, Voice-Box, a live-action interactive boxing match combining boxing and opera, or in other words, a competitive concert in a boxing ring. Voice- Box was commissioned by Harbourfronts’ Fresh Grounds program, selected out of a roster of 130 applicants from across the country. Anna’s operas, song cycles and plays have been produced by Theatre Passe Muraille, Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, The Theatre Centre, Tapestry New Opera Works, World Stage/Harbourfront, The Canadian Opera Company, Ottawa Chamber Music Festival, X Avant Festival, Sound Symposium NFL and Voice + + Festival/Open Space Arts Society, B.C. She was Playwright in Residence at Tapestry New Opera Works and was part of the Residency program at the Theatre Centre with companies Independent Auntie and urbanvessel. She is currently in Tarragon Theatre’s Playwright’s Unit and has been in playwrights units at The Canadian Stage Company, Factory Theatre.Anna runs the Write from the Hip program at Nightwood Theatre and has a BFA with a Specialization in Theatre Performance from Concordia University. 
EVALYN PARRY is a theatre creator, musican and spokenword artist. She is a founding member and writer/performer with Toronto’s Independent Auntie Theatre, with whom she has created 5 original productions (Clean Irene & Dirty Maxine, Francis, Mathilda and Tea, The Mysterious Shorts, Robbers Daughters, Breakfast). Other theatre projects include The Pastor Phelps Project: A Fundamentalist Cabaret (Ecco Homo), Reasonable People, Reasonably Disagreeing (Small Wooden Shoe, Harbourfront Centre), The Emergency Monoglogues (SummerWorks Festival), Deep Wireless Festival of Sound Art, The Freelance Lover (Gladstone Hotel), Nancy Drew (without a clue) (Rhubarb!). From 2005 to 2008, she was the director of the Buddies in Bad Times Theatre Queer Youth Arts Programme, where she created and directed the annual PrideCab Project; she is currently an Associate Artist at Buddies, where she heads the Young Creators Unit. She was a founding director of Write From the Hip (Nightwood Theatre), has taught extensively at the Lorraine Kimsa Theatre for Young People, and lead drama workshops exploring body image with teenage girls, through the Ontario Arts Council’s Arts in Education programme. She holds her degree in Drama in Education from Concordia University.As a songwriter and spokenword artist, Evalyn has toured extensively around Canada and the USA, performing at numerous music and storytelling festivals (including The Lincoln Centre Out of Doors, Hillside Festival, Calgary International Spokenword Festival, Halifax Pop Explosion, Yukon International Storytelling Festival, Toronto International Storytelling Festival and more) as well as universities, conferences, and folk clubs. She has released three CD’s: Small Theatres (Borealis Records, 2007), Unreasonable (Borealis Records 2004), Things that Should be Warnings (Ponygirl 2001), as well as a live concert DVD, Live at Lula (Borealis Records, 2006). She is the recipient of the Colleen Peterson Songwriting Award (Ontario Arts Council), The Beth Ferguson Award and nominee for the KM Hunter Award for Music (Ontario Arts Council, 2006). Her spoken-word pieces have been commissioned and broadcast on numerous national CBC Radio and TV programs, including Sounds Like Canada, Definitely Not the Opera, Marketplace, Outfront, Here and Now, Metro Morning.www.evalynparry.com
KARIN RANDOJA is a director, actor, teacher and singer/composer based in Toronto. She was a founding member of Primus Theatre and is now a member of Independent Auntie and Shakespeare Link Canada. She has directed, over the last ten years, numerous original, devised performances that have been seen across Canada and in Cleveland, New York and Los Angeles. She has acted extensively with Cleveland Public Theatre, the Caravan Farm Theatre and Wishounds, among others and was nominated for a Dora Award for her work in Red Red Rose’s production of Joan. She has performed, directed and/or taught in Denmark, Italy, France, England, as well as across Canada and the United States. With the company Shakespeare Link Canada, Karin traveled to Quelimane, Mozambique to work with actors/dancers on developing performances to raise AIDS awareness. In 2006, 16 members of Montes Namuli (Mozambique) were sponsored by Shakespeare Link Canada to perform at the International AIDS Conference in Toronto. As a singer, Karin has recorded numerous CDs and has toured to folk festivals across Canada with John Millard and Happy Day, and with Kavli. She has composed scores for the Caravan Farm Theatre and The National Arts Centre. As a teacher and director, she is on faculty at Humber College and The National Theatre School of Canada, and has taught workshops at many universities and theatres, including teaching at the International Theatre Institute in Copenhagen, Denmark. Karin is an acting graduate of The National Theatre School of Canada.BRENDAN HEALY is originally from Montreal where he studied Theatre Performance at Concordia University. Following graduation, he pursued acting professionally and appeared, most notably, in Greg MacArthur’s Girls!Girls!Girls! directed by Peter Hinton and presented at the 2001 Festival de théâtre des Amériques. It was at this festival that Brendan met Richard Maxwell, artistic director of the multiple OBIE Award winning company New York City Players. This meeting led Brendan to New York City where he interned under Mr. Maxwell and became increasingly interested in directing. Brendan eventually settled in Toronto to pursue directing full-time. Early outings as a director in Toronto include PHAE: A Trailer Park Trashedy and First You’re Born, both presented at the Summerworks Festival. In 2003, Brendan returned to Montreal to attend the National Theatre School’s directing program. At NTS, Brendan was mentored by Chris Abraham, Sarah Stanley, Keith Turnbull and Daniel Brooks, among others. In 2004, Brendan studied under Anne Bogart and the SITI Company during their summer intensive. Since graduating from NTS in May 2005, Brendan has been actively involved in Toronto’s independent theatre scene. Recent projects have included: Swipe: an Operetta (Hysteria 2005), Down the Main Drag (SummerWorks 2005 and HATCH/Harbourfront 2006), and Emergency Exits and Garden (both Summerworks 2006). He is providing ongoing dramaturgy for Small Wooden Shoe’s cycle on the great scientific revolutions of the past 300 years, Dedicated to the Revolutions, and was a co-creator of the first two instalments: Do You Have Any Idea How Fast You Were Going? (Rhubarb 2006) and Connect the Dots (Buddies in Bad Times, 2007). For the past two seasons, along with Independent Auntie Theatre, he has been a member of the Theatre Centre’s Artist-in-Residence Program. Other projects include: Sam Shepard’s Action (Equity Showcase’s Artist Development Program); I Am My Own Wife (Saydie Bronfman Centre, Montreal); a new children’s play written by Anna Chatterton and Evalyn Parry, The Robbers’ Daughter (Cooking Fire Festival); and the Canadian premiere of Wallace Shawn’s A Thought in Three Parts (SummerWorks 2007). Upcoming projects include Dying To Be Sick - a new translation of Moliere’s The Imaginary Invalid (Pleiades Theatre and the National Arts Centre); he is also the new Associate Artist at Crow’s Theatre where he will working alongside Chris Abraham on Crow’s upcoming productions of Antigone: A Clean House for a Dead Season among other things. Brendan has also been invited to direct at Concordia University for the 2007/2008 Season. He was a member of CanStage’s 2006/2007 BASH: Artist Development Program. Brendan was the recipient of the 2006 Ken McDougall Award for Emerging Director.