Leanna Brodie is an actress, writer, and literary translator of several works, including Sébastien Harrisson’s From Alaska, Hélène Ducharme’s Baobab, and Louise Bombardier’s My Mother Dog, to name a few. She has also written numerous plays that have toured Canada, as well as the CBC Radio dramas Invisible City and Seeds of Our Destruction. Most recently, Leanna attended Tapestry’s renowned composer-librettist laboratory, and has since worked on operas, including Opera on the Rocks. Her play The Book of Esther was published in 2012 by Talonbooks.

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Jovanni Sy is a playwright, director, actor, and the artistic director of Gateway Theatre in Richmond, British Columbia. In 2010, Sy wrote and performed A Taste of Empire which was nominated for two Dora Mavor Moore Awards including Outstanding New Play. It was subsequently remounted by Vancouver’s Boca del Lupo Theatre. A Cantonese version of A Taste of Empire was translated and performed by Derek Chan (with Sy directing) in 2016. Other writing credits include The Five Vengeances, a comic kung-fu adapation of The Revenger’s Tragedy and the libretti to the chamber operas Haiku Moments and The Cellar Door. Sy is currently developing the play Nine Dragons, a detective story set in 1920s colonial Hong Kong. Sy’s directing credits include God of Carnage, Antigone, and Blackbird (Theatre du Pif in Hong Kong), and Closer Than Ever, Valley Song, and Harvest (Gateway Theatre). In June 2015, he directed Clifford Cardinal’s award-winning play Stitch for Native Earth Performance Arts. As an actor, Jovanni has performed with theatre companies across Canada and overseas.

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