The artists of The Ministry of Grace

clemgrace
Brandon and Patti, by Andy Moro

Performance:
Patti Shaughnessy
Steven McCarthy
Brandon Oakes
Lindsey Clark

Direction, Dramaturgy and Design:
Tara Beagan, director & playwright
Andy Moro, lighting, video and set
Jeff Chief, costume design
Andrew Penner, sound composition & design
Daniel David Moses, dramaturg
Jenn Hewitt, production coordinator
Brittany Ryan, production management apprentice

ARTIST BIOS

TaraTara Beagan – playwright, director, co-founder/co-director
Tara is Ntlaka’pamux and Irish “Canadian.” As a playwright, Tara has been in residence at Cahoots Theatre, Native Earth Performing Arts, and the National Arts Centre. Three of her twenty plays are published, and two have received Dora Award nominations. Her works include  commissions from Theatrefront, KICK, mysterious entity, Caravan Farm and Praxis. Tara served as AD of Native Earth Performing Arts for 3 years. Prior to this, she was an actor, director, dramaturg, Community Liaison, Playwright-in-Residence, and an Artistic Associate for NEPA. As an actor, Beagan has received Dora and Betty award nominations, and has appeared on CBC radio and TV. She has directed five productions to date. tarabeagan.com

JeffJeff Chief – costume designer
Jeff is excited to be part of this production. His costume design experience includes Réunir (Saskatchewan Native Theatre Company), the Kohkum’s Christmas series (SNTC), The Cherry Orchard (Live Five), A Man A Fish (Persephone Theatre), Where the Blood Mixes (co-production, Western Canada Theatre/Theatre Aquarius/Theatre Network), The Great Mountain (Red Sky), Migration (Red Sky/Black Grace), Indigenous Dance Residencies (Banff Centre), Thunderstick (Theatre Network/Persephone Theatre), God of Carnage, and Berlin Blues (Persephone Theatre). Jeff has also built costumes at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, Citadel Theatre, Royal Winnipeg Ballet, Banff Centre’s Summer Arts Festival, Red Deer College, Persephone Theatre, and Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan.

LindseyLindsey Clark – actor playing Lizzie-Mae
Lindsey is a graduate of the Acting program at the National Theatre School of
Canada. She most recently appeared at the Next Stage Festival in Scheherazade
for Nobody’s Business Theatre. Other performance credits include: Family Story
(Birdtown Swanville); The Charge of the Expormidable Moose (One Little Goat);
Lear (Harbourfront World Stage Festival); Post Eden (Suburban Beast/Next
Stage Festival); Antigone Dead People (Small Wooden Shoe); Vacant (Triangle Pi
Productions); A Thousand Words (UnSpun Theatre); And so, the animal looked back
(Alex Wolfson); Gilgamesh (Groundwater Productions); and Dog Sees God (Six
Degrees). Lindsey can be seen next in Steady State’s Fantastic Extravagance at the
Toronto Fringe.

JennJenn Hewitt – production coordinator
Jenn is a stage manager and a versatile technician who hails from Halifax, Nova Scotia. At Neptune Theatre, in Halifax, she was head technician of their Studio Theatre for two years and a scenic painter for four years. Jenn has also been resident stage manager for the Chester Playhouse Summer Theatre Festival in Nova Scotia. Since moving to Toronto in 2010 she has worked as a freelance technician and stage manager. Select stage management credits include Musical of Musicals – The Musical!, The Last Five Years, Berlin to Broadway, Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris (Chester Playhouse); Sir John Eh? The Musical (Salon Theatre); Girl Who Loved Her Horses, White Buffalo Calf Woman, Jumping Mouse (Centre for Indigenous Theatre); Those Who Can’t Do (Theatre Passe Muraille) and Spin (Buddies in Bad Times Theatre/Outspoke Productions).

StevenSteven McCarthy – actor playing Brother Cain
Steven directed Bliss, Boblo, The 20th of November, Malaria Lullaby and Maylee Todd’s Musical Planetarium, is the frontman for 10-piece funk extravaganza The ElastoCitizens and 4-piece trash dance music group Monster, hosts the Motel Parkdale Music Residency, and has a major role in Guillermo del Toro’s upcoming television series The Strain. He runs Candles are for Burning, a company devoted to making rock and roll like it’s theatre and theatre like its rock and roll.

andyAndrew Moro – projections, set and lighting. co-founder/co-director
Toronto-based mixed European / Mushkegowuk Cree Andy Moro is an internationally acclaimed set, lighting, projection and sound designer. He is a multi-award winner and has twice been named among NOW magazine’s top-10 theatre artists.
Moro collaborates annually at the Banff Centreʼs Indigenous Dance Residency, and repeatedly with Native Earth Performing Arts, VideoCabaret, Red Sky Performance, Buddies in Bad Times, the Cabaret Company, Kaha:wi Dance, MIchael Greyeyes’ Signal Theatre and many more. Andy and Tara recently developed Beagan’s work In Spirit for Native Earth Performing Arts and toured her Dreary and Izzy in collaboration with Western Canada, Gateway and Saskatchewan Native Theatres.
www.andymoro.com

DDMDaniel David Moses – dramaturg
Daniel is a Delaware from the Six Nations Reserve in southern Ontario. His plays include Coyote City, a nominee for the 1991 Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama, his most traveled, Almighty Voice and His Wife, and the James Buller Award Winner The Indian Medicine Shows. His newest books are A Small Essay on the Largeness of Light and Other Poems (2012) and the Oxford University Press’ An Anthology of Canadian Native Literature in English, of which he is a founding co-editor (2013). He teaches as an associate professor and a Queen’s National Scholar in the Department of Drama, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario.

BrandonBrandon Oakes – actor playing Clem
Brandon was once approached by a man who had no shoes. The man asked Brandon for shoes. Brandon gave him his. Brandon is best known as an actor for TV, film, and the stage. Recently, you’ve possibly seen him in the feature film Rhymes for Young Ghouls or in the Glen Gould directed Thunderstick by Kenneth T. Williams. Brandon is also a visual artist and a writer.

 

AndrewAndrew Penner  – composer and sound designer
Theatre:  Andrew is an award winning composer and sound designer who has worked with The Stratford Festival, Soulpepper, Canadian Stage, RBC Festival of Classics, The Tarragon Theatre, Obsidian Theatre, Native Earth, Necessary Angel, The Theatre Centre, and several others.  Andrew is also a member of the award winning, Kitchenband (Boblo, Reesor, Pelee, Petrichor).  Film/TV:  Andrew has created music for “Small Town Murder Songs”, “Cooking With Stella”, “One Week” (Genie Award), “Who is KK Dowey” and “This Beautiful City” (Genie Nomination), the upcoming “Edweard”, as well as others.  His music can also be heard on the television series, “Lost Girl”.   Music:  Andrew has released 4 critically acclaimed albums with his band, Sunparlour Players (www.sunparlourplayers.com) and has performed across North America.  He also produces records ranging most genres and enjoys making noise.

BrittBrittany Ryan – production management apprentice
Brittany is a Chinese-Métis (Ojibwe) production/stage manager and administrator currently beginning her career in theatre. Brittany worked with ARTICLE 11 as a Production Assistant for their installation entitled DECLARATION at Fork York during the On Common Ground Festival. She has worked with other Indigenous companies such as Native Earth Performing Arts (NEPA), Michael Greyeyes’s Signal Theatre, and the Centre for Indigenous Theatre as an Assistant Stage Manager. Brittany currently works in the office as a Fundraising Intern and Administrator for NEPA and the Indigenous Performing Arts Alliance. Brittany will be pursuing her final year of her BFA at Ryerson University for Performance Production in the fall.

PattiPatti Shaughnessy – actor playing Grace
Patti is from a small band of the Mississaugas located on a beautiful peninsula known as Wshkiigimong, (Curve Lake FN).  Patti studied at Trent University and following her academic studies she trained at the Centre for Indigenous Theatre in Toronto.  For the last decade, Patti has worked as an actor and artistic producer of various theatre and multi arts projects, most notable being the Ode’min Giizis Festival.  Selected acting credits include touring Canada and Mexico with Red Sky Performance in Raven Stole the Sun and acting in three Canadian productions of Tomson Highway’s The Rez Sisters (Theatre Northwest, Magnus Theatre and Market Hall Theatre).  Patti has recently returned from Nuuk, Greenland where she works as a director and theatre instructor at the National Theatre of Greenland and its school. Patti is thrilled to be working on The Ministry of Grace with this dynamic company.