March 19, 2024
Directed by Nora Vision
Stage Manager- Amelia Wagenaar
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Immaculate Conception
by KM Naud
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SPLIT
by Anna Thorsen
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Family Play
By Neko Smart
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Kissing Lessons
by Marissa Charles
Playwrights
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KM Naud
Immaculate Conception
KM Naud (they/them) is an emerging writer, living and working on traditional, stolen and unceded Musqueam territory. They are in their final year of the creative writing BFA program at UBC.
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Anna Thorsen
Split
Anna Thorsen is a Zambian/Swedish writer, theatre producer and filmmaker from Vancouver, Canada. She’s attending UBC for her BFA in Creative writing. Anna has made over 10 short films, works as a Dispatcher for IATSE Local 118, and is an Associate Producer for UBC’s 2024 Brave New Brave Rites festival.
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Neko Smart
Family Play
Neko Smart is a BFA Creative Writing student at UBC. As 2020 Victoria City Youth Poet Laureate, they emphasised the importance of cultivating open dialogue about mental health. They’re a member of Raising Voices and Wordplay poetry workshop facilitation rosters. They’re thrilled to have their second play produced at BNPR.
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Marissa Charles
Kissing Lessons
Marissa Charles is a Queer Autistic Metis writer who works in multiple genres, including poetry, creative nonfiction, and stage/screenwriting, and like to dabble in fiction and songwriting. Marissa has been published in multiple Pearls: A Douglas Student Anthology editions with their poetry and screenwriting. Marissa has completed two diplomas at Vancouver Acting School, one in Acting for Film/TV and Voice over and the other from the Comedy Conservatory, before going on and completing her Associate of Arts Degree in Creative Writing at Douglas College. She is currently in her Bachelor of Fine Arts: Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia and producing a Dungeons and Dragons live play podcast.
Company
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Nora Vision
Director
Nora Vision is a playwright, drag queen, and robotic emissary sent from the future. “Born and raised” on Treaty 1 territory, they have produced and performed in the Winnipeg Fringe Festival, Toronto SketchFest, and Ladyfest in Montreal. A recent graduate from National Theatre School’s Playwriting Program, Nora’s play SYCOPHANT was produced as part of the school’s New Words Festival May 2023. She is currently an artist in residence at Rumble Theatre, where she is developing “Waiting for Gal Gadot”, a one-woman drag talk show. As an artificially intelligent robot, Nora is interested in creating work that confronts identity, culture, and propaganda, questioning how each contributes, limits, and undermines one’s sense of reality.
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Blair Brienza
Blair (they/them and he/him) is a mid-sized tiger in a temporal jungle. Big love to all BNPR folx, and to you! Theater: This Emancipation Thing (REDCAT LA), Above Us (FringeNYC), The Waste Land (Edinburgh Fringe). TV: Lucifer, The Blacklist. Film: Prime Matter, Joker (SAG Award nominee). BFA, CalArts. blairbrienza.com
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Sophie Kaplan
Originally from Maine, Sophie is a recent graduate of Bishop's University with a degree in Drama and a concentration in Musical Theatre. She is newly located in Vancouver and pleased to meet so many wonderful artists so quickly. She is honored to be a part of these amazing new works, and can't wait to see how they further develop. When not performing, Sophie's second love is stage management, and most recently was the tour stage manager for Axis Theatre's production of Th'owxiya: The Hungry Feast Dish.
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Sam Macneil
Sam Keiran Macneil is a transmasculine, neurodivergent actor and screenwriter in "Vancouver, BC" who once believed they couldn't be an actor because they were a quiet kid. It took turning thirty to realize they were allowed to do this thing that makes them feel human as a quiet adult.
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Claire deBruyn
Claire deBruyn (she/her) is a Vancouver based actor, dancer, and musical-theatre performer. Select credits include 30 Neo-Futurist Plays (Bramble Theatre Collective), Amphitruo (United Players), and I, Claudia (The Guild Hall). Claire is a co-founder of Bramble Theatre Collective, recently completed a counselling degree, and can often be found petting other people’s dogs.
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Julian Legere
Living on occupied Coast Salish territories, Julian is a bi/genderqueer artist, arts worker, and community organizer of European and Acadien settler ancestry. He is producing and co-starring in the West Coast premiere of Lara Rae’s Dragonfly in Fall 2024, and writing an absurdist comedy about a dehoused encampment.