The Labs

Louise Casemore

Louise is an artist advocate, prairie nuisance, and two-time Sterling Award winning playwright. Based in Alberta on Treaty 6 and 7 Territory, she is the recipient of the ATP/Enbridge Playwright’s Award, nominee for the John Palmer Award from the Playwright’s Guild of Canada, and an Artist Consultant focused on HR mechanisms in performing arts organizations. Original plays include OCD, Functional, GEMINI, and Undressed (which premiered with Alberta Theatre Projects in 2022). Louise remains active in the wider community by way of dramaturgy, teaching, and sector research; and in 2021 she released the long-range national study on new play development, “Surveying The Landscape”, commissioned by Alberta Playwright’s Network. She is currently steeped in an MFA in Theatre Practice from the University of Alberta, and continuing to develop plays that keep her up at night.

Chris Dodd

Chris Dodd is a Deaf actor, playwright, accessibility advocate and founder and artistic director of SOUND OFF, Canada’s national festival dedicated to the Deaf performing arts which takes place annually at the Arts Barns. Notable performances include “Ultrasound” at Theatre Passe Muraille. Notable film performances include the role of “Odin” in the upcoming feature film, “Finality of Dusk”. He is pleased to be returning to the Citadel this season with his solo show, “Deafy”, as part of the Horizon Series. The play was recently published by Playwrights Canada Press as part of the anthology “Interdependent Magic”. His other plays include “Alicia and the Machine” and “Please Remain Behind the Shield”. Chris holds a degree in Drama from the University of Alberta. He is the recipient of the Guy Laliberté Prize for innovation and creative leadership by the Canada Council of the Arts and a Governor General Innovation Award finalist.

Josh Languedoc

Josh is an Anishinaabe playwright from the proud reserve of Saugeen First Nation. Just recently finished his MFA Theare Practice from the University of Alberta where he concentrated on playwriting with an Indigenous and land-based lens. Other plays include: Rocko and Nakota: Tales From the Land, CIVIL BLOOD: A Treaty Story, The Eyes of Spirits, and The Englishman’s Boy. Most recently Josh wrote IN-COR-RI-GI-BLE: The Legend of Thundervoice for his MFA Thesis; and A Temporary Stop In Time for his alma matter, Victoria School of the Arts. Josh is also a theatre producer, director, and teacher.

Jennifer Siddle

Jennifer (Jenny) Siddle is a multi-award nominated TV Writer/Producer. Most recently she worked as a Co-Executive Producer on the teen sitcom TAKE NOTE, which premiered on Peacock in 2022. Born in Edmonton, Alberta, Jenny has written for shows such as Mr. Young (YTV/Disney XD), Some Assembly Required (YTV/Netflix), and Corner Gas Animated (CTV/Crave). She has been nominated for 2 Writers Guild of Canada Screenwriting Awards, 2 Leo Awards, and has twice been a finalist for a Canadian Screen Award. In addition to writing for the screen, Jennifer is also a playwright. She co-wrote the book to CAPSLOCK: The Musical, which won Pick of the Fringe at the 2012 Vancouver International Fringe Festival. In 2018, her play For The Love Of Summer won Best Overall Production at the York Region Festival of One-Act Plays in New Market, Ontario.

JESSY ARDERN

LAB PLAYWRIGHT

Jessy Ardern is an actor and playwright. She has a particular interest in the adaption of mythology and classic literature for the stage. Jessy studied English Lit at the University of Winnipeg and has a BFA in Acting from the University of Alberta. Selected writing credits include Prophecy; The Fall of the House of Atreus: A Cowboy Love Song; The Hound of Ulster; Harold & Vivian Entertain Guests and Queen Lear is Dead. Jessy has received two Elizabeth Sterling Haynes Awards for her work as a playwright. Her first feature film as a screenwriter, Connecting Flights, was filmed in Edmonton and released in 2021. She’s extremely excited to be working on a large-scale interactive piece with the Citadel Playwrights Lab and her collaborators at The Fox Den Collective!

MAC BROCK

LAB PLAYWRIGHT

Mac Brock (he/him) is a Regina-born Edmonton-based artist with the softest spot for queer prairie magic. Past productions include Tracks, Dry, and Boy Trouble, which received a Sterling nomination for Outstanding Fringe Production. He has contributed plays to the Saskatchewan Playwrights’ Centre’s Spring Festival, Tiny Bear Jaws’ Holiday Microplay Celebration, Found Festival’s Secret City, and Citadel Theatre’s Horizon Lab (with collaborator Salem Clarke). When he’s not typing for stories, he’s doing it as an administrator or consultant with organizations like Edmonton Fringe Theatre and the Edmonton Heritage Council, or as Managing Producer of Common Ground Arts Society. Upcoming: A new production of Boy Trouble (playwright); Tune to A (producer) at Expanse 2022 by Carly Neis, Cynthia Jimenez-Hicks, and Cameron Kneteman; and a first edition of podcast Disabled as Folk (producer) by Carly Neis and Laurel Carter. You can also check him out on stage at Rapid Fire Theatre!

ARUN LAKRA

LAB PLAYWRIGHT

Arun Lakra is a Calgary-based playwright-slash-doctor who gravitates to complex, cerebral, science-heavy, idea-based material, meaningful on both a personal and societal level. Not this year folks! After the pandeminsanity of the last couple of years (take that Webster!), it’s time to have some fun! Bored historians may one day call this “Lakra’s Light Period” (his mood sadly not his mass). Because this year, he’s embarking on a mission to create laughter, twists, tingles, and fun with a strict zero tolerance policy for heavy or dark. To kick off his Year of the Heist, Lakra’s new play, Fortunato Heist, will open at the Bloomington (Indiana) Playwrights Project in March. And he can’t wait to work with the brilliant artists at Citadel on Broadway Heist (is it a comedy or is it a heist?!), which he hopes will one day bring laughter and gasps to Alberta audiences. @arunlakraOU arunlakra.com

JOVANNI SY

LAB PLAYWRIGHT

Jovanni Sy is a Calgary-based playwright, director, and performer. He served as Artistic Director of Gateway Theatre (Vancouver) and of Cahoots Theatre (Toronto). He has collaborated with theatre companies across Canada and abroad. Jovanni’s one-man play, A Taste of Empire, was nominated for two Dora Awards. It was subsequently translated into Cantonese and performed by Derek Chan. A Tagalog version (Lasa ng Imperyo) is being developed by Carmela Sison. Jovanni’s award-winning play Nine Dragons premiered at Vertigo Theatre in 2017; a prequel titled Kowloon Bay is currently in development. Jovanni (and co-writer Leanna Brodie) received a co-commission from the Stratford Festival and the Banff Playwrights Lab to develop Salesman in China, a bilingual dramatization of Arthur Miller’s 1983 visit to Beijing to direct a Mandarin translation of Death of a Salesman.

RENELTTA ARLUK

LAB PLAYWRIGHT

Reneltta Arluk is Inuvialuit/Dene/Cree from the NWT. Raised by her grandparents on the trap-line, this life experience gives Reneltta a unique cultural and artistic lens to work from. Reneltta authored Thoughts and Other Human Tendencies with Bookland Press, available in English, French and Cree. Publications: Inuit Quarterly, ArcPoetry Magazine and Climate Change THEATRE ACTION. Plays: TUMIT, a radio adaptation of I Count Myself Among Them by Richard Van Camp and Pawâkan Macbeth dedicated to Frog Lake, AB. Pawâkan Macbeth is currently being workshopped at the Stratford Festival. As part of Citadel’s THE LAB, Reneltta will be writing about Tookoolito, the Inuk woman guide and translator to Charles Francis Hall.

BETH GRAHAM

LAB PLAYWRIGHT

Beth Graham is an Edmonton playwright and actor. Her plays include: Pretty Goblins, The Gravitational Pull of Bernice Trimble (shortlisted for a Governor Generals’ Award, received the Gwen Pharis Ringwood Award), and Working It Out (Sterling Award). She is also a co-creator of The Drowning Girls, a play that has been produced nationally and internationally and will be produced again this fall at the Great Canadian Theatre Company in Ottawa.

DARRIN HAGEN

LAB PLAYWRIGHT

Darrin Hagen is an award-winning playwright, composer, author and drag artiste, and the Artistic Director of Guys In Disguise. He has spent 20 years compiling stories of Edmonton’s LGBTQ history, beginning with the release of his stories of the underground drag community, The Edmonton Queen. Other plays by Darrin include BitchSlap!, Tornado Magnet, Witch Hunt at the Strand, With Bells On, and The Empress & The Prime Minister. He has been inducted into the Q Hall of Fame Canada and the Edmonton Queer Hall of Fame. In 2005 he was named one of 100 Edmontonians of the Century, and in 2017 was named one of Alberta’s 25 Most Influential Artists in the last 25 years. To the best of his knowledge, he’s the only drag queen on that list. He was one of the official Cultural Ambassadors of Canada’s 150 Celebrations, and is currently serving as Writer In Residence for Edmonton Public Library for 2018.

KENNETH T. WILLIAMS

LAB PLAYWRIGHT

Kenneth T. Williams once Googled “Kenneth Williams” and he got a million hits about “famous dead gay British playwrights.” He didn’t want anyone to think he was British or dead, so he added his middle initial to his professional name. Now his name sounds like Tennessee Williams with a lisp. Go ahead. Sound it out, you know you want to.

Kenneth T. Williams is a Cree playwright from the George Gordon First Nation in the Treaty 4 Territory. He is the first Indigenous person to earn an M.F.A. in playwriting from the University of Alberta, where he now teaches in the Drama Department. His plays In Care, Café Daughter, Gordon Winter, Thunderstick, Bannock Republic, Suicide Notes, and Three Little Birds have been produced across Canada.

He tweets about drama and Indigenous peoples under his handle, @feralplaywright. He lives in Edmonton with his partner, Dr. Melissa Stoops, and their hamster, The Grand Duchess Minnie Blackbear, and their cat, Augustus Caesar McFuzzyboots.