Bartholomew Fair Cover.indd - Stratford Festival

michael spencer-Davis – actor
Second season: Bristle in Bartholomew Fair, Caska in Julius Caesar
and Quince in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Last season Michael
played The Poet in Shakespeare’s Universe (Her Infinite Variety).
Recent credits include Medea (Manitoba Theatre Centre/Mirvish),
Macbeth (National Arts Centre/Citadel), And All For Love (NAC) and
The Elephant Man (CanStage). Other credits: The Real Thing and Humble Boy (MTC);
Apple (Prairie Theatre Exchange); Via Dolorosa (Winnipeg Jewish Theatre); Blithe
Spirit, Einstein’s Gift (Citadel); Othello (NAC/Citadel); The File (SummerWorks);
A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Festival of Classics); A Phoenix Too Frequent, The
Playboy of the Western World (Touchmark Theatre); Twelfth Night (NAC); As You
Like It, The Stone Angel, The Tempest, The Taming of the Shrew, Heaven, The Beard
of Avon, Twelfth Night, Amadeus (CanStage); Unless (CanStage/Belfry/Arts Club);
and SIBS (national tour), and Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God (Obsidian/
Nightwood Theatre). Film/TV credits include Flash of Genius, The Eleventh Hour,
Street Time and Canada: A People’s History.
matt steinberg – actor
Stratford debut: John Littlewit in Bartholomew Fair, Dardanius in
Julius Caesar and appears in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Recent
Canadian theatre credits include The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? at
Neptune Theatre, Art is a Cupboard at the Toronto Fringe and
readings at Tarragon Theatre. New York City credits include King
Lear, King John, Timon of Athens and Coriolanus, as well as work at Classic Stage
Company, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Rattlestick Theater, Threshold Theatre and
a workshop of Timothy Findley’s The Wars. Film and TV credits include Dirty
Work, The Best Years, Degrassi, Trojan Horse and True Confessions of a Hollywood
Starlet. Matt trained at HB Studio, New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theater’s
Shakespeare Lab and Shakespeare’s Globe in London, where he represented
Canada as the 2007 Christopher Plummer Award recipient for the International
Actors’ Fellowship program.
brian tree – actor
2oth season: Humphrey Wasp in Bartholomew Fair and Erronius
in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Stratford
roles include Costard (Love’s Labour’s Lost), Caversham (An Ideal
Husband), Dolly Spanker (London Assurance), Stephano (The
Tempest), Robert de Beaudricourt (The Lark), Thomas Cranmer
(King Henry VIII), Fred (Present Laughter), Holofernes (Love’s Labour’s Lost), Oswald
(King Lear, also Lincoln Center, New York), Shamrayev (The Seagull), Professor
Vambrace (Tempest-Tost), Mr. Dussel (The Diary of Anne Frank), Touchstone (As
You Like It), Mr. Bennet (Pride and Prejudice), Mr. Lowther (The Prime of Miss Jean
Brodie), Jacques (The Miser), Alfredo (Filumena), Joxer Daly (Juno and The Paycock)
and Frank Strang (Equus). Elsewhere: Michael in Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me
and Kemp in Vigil (Tarragon Theatre), Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream
(CanStage), Harry in The Sum of Us (Belfry Theatre), the Player in Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern Are Dead (Touchmark) and a ton of other good stuff as well.
christopher van hagen – actor
Second season: Urchin in Bartholomew Fair. Christopher is very
excited to be returning to the Stratford Shakespeare Festival
for a second season after playing Winthrop Paroo in The Music
Man. As a member of the Amabile Boys Choir, he has performed
with New York conductor/composer Jim Papoulis and England’s
Bob Chilcott. He performed in the Canadian première of Paul McCartney’s
Ecce Cor Meum. Christopher attends St. Mary’s Choir and Orchestra School in
London, where he enjoys an enriched choral program and is learning to play the
violin. Christopher would like to thank the Stratford Shakespeare Festival for all
the knowledge they have given him, and his family and friends for all their love
and support.
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brigit wilson – actor
Sixth season: Housekeeper in Three Sisters, Dame Purecraft in
Bartholomew Fair and understudy in Phèdre. Last seen at Stratford
in The Merchant of Venice, as the Courtesan in The Comedy of
Errors and as Gertrude Chiltern in An Ideal Husband. Other Festival
credits include Dolly in Orpheus Descending, Mae in Cat on a Hot
Tin Roof, Corine in The Triumph of Love, Carconte in The Count of Monte Cristo,
Dionyza in Pericles, Paquette in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Lydia in Quiet in
the Land, the Widow in All’s Well That Ends Well and Augusta in The Swanne, part 1.
Brigit has performed at Theatre by the Bay, the Segal Centre, Blyth Festival, MTC,
Royal Alex, Shaw Festival, Grand Theatre, Skylight Theatre and as far away as the
Edinburgh Festival. She has appeared in numerous commercials, films and TV
shows including four seasons as Harriet Sims on The Campbells. “To my sweet
husband, thank you.”
Abigail winter-culliford – actor
Third season: Mooncalf in Bartholomew Fair and Moth in
A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Previously at the Stratford
Shakespeare Festival, 12-year-old Abigail appeared as Scout
in To Kill A Mockingbird and as Moth in Love’s Labour’s Lost. Her
first stage role, at age six, was Gretl in The Sound of Music and
then Amaryllis in The Music Man (Royal City Musical Theatre). Abigail also
played Anna in the original stage adaptation of Mister God, This Is Anna.
Abigail has enjoyed three seasons with the Arts Club Theatre (Vancouver),
where she performed the roles of Narrator and Chip in Beauty and the Beast.
Abigail’s favourite playground is the outdoors. As part of her dance and
music background, Abigail is a step-dancer and plays the violin. Abigail
continues to invent and to explore the many uses of duct tape. Her longterm
vision is to live on a farm. Film credit: The Fog; TV credit: The Collector.
“Thanks to Mom, and Dad, and all who have helped me so far!”
gillian wolpert – assistant lighting designer
Third season: Assistant lighting designer of Three Sisters,
Bartholomew Fair, Ever Yours, Oscar and Phèdre. Gillian is delighted
to be returning for her third season in Stratford after serving as
assistant lighting designer on Oklahoma!, King Lear, Cabaret and
The Music Man. Gillian is a Jessie Richardson Award-nominated
lighting designer whose recent work includes the Toronto première of Soulless
(505 Productions), The Taxi Project (PEN Canada), Jesus My Boy and Driving Miss
Daisy (Pacific Theatre), A Man of No Importance (Acting Up Stage), The Unfortunate
Misadventures of Masha Galinski and A Thought in Three Parts (Groundwater
Productions), and The Unexpected Man (Unexpected Co-op). Her online portfolio
can be viewed at www.gillianwolpert.com. Gillian is a graduate of UBC and would
like to thank her family and friends for their unending support.
Joanna yu – assistant designer
Stratford debut: Assistant designer for Bartholomew Fair. Joanna
is a Toronto-based designer and is thrilled to be working with the
Stratford Shakespeare Festival. Recent credits include Canadian
Opera Company (Le Nozze di Figaro, and Don Carlos, assistant
lighting design), TD Bank/CanStage Pride float (Unity, float
and costume design), Highball Productions (Tyrolia, set and costume design),
Bloomfield Productions (The Christian Republican Fundraiser in Dayton Tennessee,
set and lighting design) and George Brown College Dance (Spring Showcase
2007 and 2008, lighting design). Joanna is returning from months of touring
the U.S., Mexico and France with South Africa’s longest-running musical, African
Footprint, and couldn’t be happier to be back in Canada with her family and
friends. She is a graduate of York University’s theatre production program.