Good Fences
By The Downstage Creation Ensemble
In association with Downstage


Ellen CloseEllen Close - Co-creator & Performer

Ellen is an actor, playwright and a graduate of the Acting Program of the National Theatre School. Selected performance credits include Unity (1918) and Hearts of the New West - the Shackter Show (Alberta Theatre Projects), Blood: A Scientific Romance (Sage Theatre), The Way of All Fish (Lunchbox), Arm’s Length Embrace, Bus(t), Bone Cage and In the Wake (Downstage), Christmas Hamlet (Swallow-a-Bicycle), and The Stranger Series (TheatreBOOM). She was the Festival Director of Sage Theatre’s IGNITE! for its 2009 & 2010 incarnations. In 2010, she was nominated for the Enbridge Emerging Artist Award. Ellen is the Associate Artistic Producer of Downstage.



Ethan ColeEthan Cole - Co-creator & Composer

Ethan is a playwright, composer, lyricist and librettist. He has worked with many Calgary theatre companies, including Lunchbox Theatre, Downstage, Alberta Theatre Projects, Calgary Opera, Calgary Young Peoples Theatre, Evergreen Theatre, and Mob Hit Productions. Recent projects include the Betty Mitchell Award-winning show The Astonishing Adventures of Awesome Girl and Radical Boy (Centre Stage Theatre, Lunchbox Theatre) as well as the new musical Peril In Paris which premiered at Lunchbox this season. Ethan is a frequent facilitator of workshops and theatre education projects for youth, including the Alberta Theatre Projects Student Writers Group. He was nominated for Outstanding Composition or Sound Design at the 2010 Betty Mitchell Awards for his music for In the Wake.


Cole CsekeCol Cseke - Co-creator & Performer

Col is a Calgary based creator and performer. He is co-artistic director of Verb Theatre, and founding member and active artist with the This Is My City Art Society. Selected credits include In the Wake, Bus(t), Arm’s Length Embrace (Downstage), Oedipus Evolving, Bubble Boy: Slide Show, and The Opposite of Dismal (Verb Theatre), Transit UnRomatic (Alberta Theatre Projects), Love’s Labour’s Lost (The Shakespeare Company), Wanderlust and Freak Show (Swallow-a-Bicycle). Selected writing credits include The Ex-Pats (Lunchbox Theatre’s Stage One festival), I Dream of Disney, and the short film Obituary Now. This season Col will also premiere new performance creation works in OYR’s High Performance Rodeo (with This Is My City)  and at the Calgary International Children’s Festival (with Verb Theatre) and as a playwright he will premiere Jim Forgetting with Verb Theatre and write the libretto for Calgary Opera’s Let’s Make an Opera program.


Anton deGrootAnton deGroot - Co-creator & Production Designer

Anton is a creator, director and designer, and holds a BFA from the University of Calgary’s Department of Drama. Selected design credits include: Ruined (Ellipsis Tree Collective), With Bells On (Lunchbox Theatre), Habitat, Man Out of Joint, Palace of the End, The Dishwashers (Downstage), Alice in Wonderland and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Calgary Young People’s Theatre). As a member of the Downstage Creation Ensemble, Anton has been a co-creator on In the Wake, Bus(t) and Arm’s-Length Embrace. His writing has been published in Canadian Theatre Revue, and he is an occasional contributor to the All Stages Magazine. Anton is artistic director for Parenthesis Company, and teaches acting and creation to young performers with Calgary Young Peoples Theatre and The Birmingham Repertory Theatre in the UK.


Nicola ElsonNicola Elson - Co-creator & Performer

Nicola completed her MFA at York University in Toronto before moving to London where she toured throughout the UK and Italy for five years. In Calgary, Nicola works as an actor, creator, percussionist, stilt walker, and educator. She teaches for the University of Calgary, Artstrek, Evergreen Theatre, Trickster Theatre and Quest Theatre, is currently the Artist in Residence at Willow Park Arts School and works as an interpreter at the Calgary Zoo. Selected performance credits include In the Wake (winner of the 2010 Betty Mitchell Award for Outstanding New Play), Bust(t) (nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actress at the 2010 Betty Mitchell Awards) and Arm's-Length Embrace (Downstage), Blythe Spirit (Vertigo Theatre), Blood: A Scientific Romance, The Attic, the Pearls and Three Fine Girls (Sage Theatre), Death; A Comedy (Calgary, Edmonton Fringe), Dressing Dangerously (BBC Documentary - UK), A Midsummer Night's Dream (UK Tour).

Tuled GiovanazziTuled Giovanazzi - Production Manager

Tuled is very excited to be back at the Playrites Festival and working with such a great group of artists. Tuled is a Production Manager, Stage Manager, Lighting Designer in town. Selected PM credits include Canadian Badlands Passion Play, Night Light (Quest Theatre) and the CFL Experience at the 2010 Grey Cup. Stage Management credits include Goodness (Downstage); Season of Wonder (Young Canadians); When That I Was (Shakespeare Company) and The Vajayjay Monologues (Pot of Jam Productions). Tuled's Lighting Design credits include The Vajayjay Monologues and whiteNOISE (Earpiece Collective). As an Assistant Stage Manager, Tuled has worked on Last Dog of War (Alberta Theatre Projects); The Highest Step in the World (ATP & Ghost River Theatre) and Speed-the-Plow (Ground Zero Theatre) and she graduated from the Production Program of the National Theatre School of Canada.


Braden GriffithsBraden Griffiths - Co-creator & Performer

Born, raised and educated in Calgary, this will be Braden’s third devised theatre project with the Downstage Creation Ensemble. Other selected performance credits include Gift of the Coat, that elusive spark, Peter Pan (Alberta Theatre Projects), Columbo Takes the Rap, Black Coffee (Vertigo Theatre), Ways and Means, A Life in the Theatre (Lunchbox Theatre), Scorched (Sage Theatre), Illegal Entry (Ground Zero Theatre), four seasons with Calgary's Shakespeare in the Park, as well as Bone Cage, Bus(t) and In the Wake for Downstage. He can often be found working in the world of Theatre for Young Audiences with Quest Theatre as a performer and educator, and with Calgary Young People’s Theatre and the University of Calgary as a director and designer. Braden was nominated for the 2009 Enbridge Emerging Artist Award and in 2010 was co-recipient of a Betty Mitchell Award (with the rest of the Downstage Creation Ensemble) for Best New Play (In the Wake).


Simon MallettSimon Mallett - Co-Creator & Director

Simon is the Founder & Artistic Producer of Downstage, and has directed many of the company's previous productions including A Line in the Sand, Habitat, Bone Cage, Enoch Arden in the Hope Shelter, Bus(t), In the Wake and the World Premiere of Sharon Pollock's Man Out of Joint. Simon has also worked with a variety of other theatre companies including Theatre Calgary where he is the associate director on A Christmas Carol, Vertigo Theatre, Alberta Theatre Projects, Lunchbox Theatre and New West Theatre. He holds a MFA in Directing from the University of Calgary, an Honours BA in Drama from the University of Guelph, and he is the recipient of The Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Emerging Artist Award, the Enbridge Emerging Artist Award (for Cardboard Sign Brigade), and was nominated for the Betty Mitchell Award for Outstanding Direction (for In the Wake). 


Vicki Stroich - Dramaturg