Land Acknowledgement
The Greater Victoria Shakespeare Festival creates and performs on the land of the lək̓ʷəŋən and W̱SÁNEĆ peoples. We respect the relationship they continue to have with the land to this day, and the strength of their generational resilience in the face of ongoing, systemic colonial violence and genocide. We are committed to the continual process of unlearning deeply embedded notions of white supremacy and colonial racism, and to continuing to become better allies wherever we can. We ask that you consider your relationship to this land as well, and remember that every settler is responsible for dismantling the colonial genocide that Indigenous people continue to face.
A Message from Mayor Barbara Desjardins
We are proud to have The Greater Victoria Shakespeare Festival return to Esquimalt this summer. Bard Across the Bridge has proven to be a wildly popular event for our community with its talented team, cast members and modern interpretations of the Bard's works all presented in the most amazing and unique outdoor settings. This year, we'd proud to have the GVSF join us at Esquimalt Gorge Park, the site for our brand new Gorge Pavillion. The Arts are alive and well in the Township thanks to the commitment of Township Community Arts Council, it's many partners and dedicated volunteers!
Production Credits
Karen Lee Pickett: Artistic Director
Candace Woodland: General Manager
Barbara Poggemiller*: Director
Willis Taylor: Music Composer / Director
Jaren Guerreiro: Choreography/Stage Combat
Kaitlyn Alderson: Stage Manager
Sian Spiller-Tisserand: Assistant Stage Manager
Hannah Ockenden: Costumer
Michelle Mitchell: Costume Coordinator
Sarah Pitman: Front of House Manager
Loreto Espinoza: Props Coordinator
Gaby Girard: Stage Management Intern
Megan Farrell: Running Crew
Megan Wong: Intimacy Director
Board of Directors
Alison Balabuch: President
Cam Culham: Vice President
Brooke Gallupe: Member at Large
Asa O’Connor-Jaeckel: Youth Member at Large
ADVISORY BOARD MEMBERS:
Shona Slack, Paul Croy, Lori Fisher, Ian Case
Cast List
Stephie Bright, Rosalind
Violet Brownsey, Second Lord / Dennis
Cam Culham, Duke Senior / Duke Frederick
Nathaniel Exley, Touchstone
David Gardiner, Corin
Aidan Guerreiro, Orlando
Jaren Guerreiro, Oliver / Sir Oliver Martext
Kelsey Launier, Phoebe / Eden
Grace Martin, Celia
Hannah Ockenden, Amiens / Audrey / Le Beau
Sian Spiller-Tisserand, Juno
Willis Taylor, Jacques
Ciaran Volke, Silvius / Charles
Jesse Wilson, William / First Lord / Jacques de Boys
Director’s Notes
This is a play about love…all kinds of love…the bond of the cousins, the instant fall in love for Rosalind and Orlando, Phoebe for Ganymede, Silvius’ anguished love for Phoebe, Oliver and Celia “no sooner looked but they loved,” and love’s best frolic, Audrey and Touchstone.
The comedies of Shakespeare begin with tragedy in the first act – a world out of order, needing to be restored. Duke Frederick has banished and deposed his elder brother, Duke Senior, who is now living in exile in the forest (like Robin Hood in days of yore). Duke Frederick then proceeds to banish his niece Rosalind, without realizing his own daughter, Celia, will run away to accompany her beloved cousin. Orlando, brother of Oliver, is fighting for his freedom from Oliver’s unnatural containment.
The remaining acts take place in the Forest of Arden, where the deposed Duke and fellow courtiers, as well as those recently banished, have found refuge and solace among the country folk, hunting venison and meditating on life. Rather than a place of banishment, the forest has become a safe haven and refuge, a place of freedom and discovery, a place where country and courtly folk co-exist in some harmony and community.
The play highlights gender fluidity, as Rosalind in disguise as the shepherd, Ganymede, discovers great liberation, freedom of speech and emotional expression in her hunt for love.
The play reflects our responsibility, or lack of, to caretake nature and the creatures within. The play reveals a letting go of status roles, as when the deposed Duke addresses his fellow banished lords as “co-mates and brothers in exile.” In Arden, the country folk and city folk are met together and co-exist, and inter-marry, creating more diversity in community. The play explores reconciliation as the brothers overcome their adversity.
The play is musical, poetical, expressive and brilliant in language, playful and uplifting. A ritual of transformation, creating a world where people from diverse backgrounds get along and enjoy each others company.
This company of actors, managers, designers and co-creators, is “wonderful, wonderful and most wonderful wonderful.” They are talented, dedicated, generous, wise, full of integrity, full of poetry in language and body, and an absolute delight to discover this play with. We are gifted with an extraordinary team of stage management (Kaitlyn, Sian, Gaby, Megan), intimacy director (Megan), costumiers (Hannah, Michelle), props (Loreto), musical creation/maestro (Willis), choreography/fight direction (Jaren) and a front of house fairy with a flute (Sarah).
I am grateful to Karen and Candace for creating an inclusive atmosphere, based on respect and care for each individual. I am grateful that they have given me this most wonderful opportunity. We truly hope you like it!
Barbara poggemiller*
Synopsis
Dr. Erin E. Kelly
We open with brothers in conflict with one another. Orlando is upset that his older brother Oliver, contrary to their deceased father’s wishes, has failed to educate him as a gentleman. Although an elderly household servant, Eden, attempts to reconcile the two men, tensions remain, and when the Duke’s wrestler Charles warns Oliver that Orlando might be injured in a scheduled match, Oliver convinces Charles that Orlando is dangerous and deserves to be killed.
Meanwhile, the rightful Duke (Ferdinand) has been banished after a coup by his younger brother Frederick. Ferdinand’s daughter, Rosalind, and the daughter of the usurping duke, Celia, however, remain best friends and reside together at court.
When the young ladies go to see the wrestling, they meet Orlando. Orlando surprisingly defeats Charles, and Duke Frederick is pleased until he learns the victor is the son of Sir Rowland de Boys, his one-time enemy, and rejects him. Rosalind and Celia offer their congratulations to Orlando before he leaves court. During their exchanges, it becomes clear that Orlando and Rosalind have fallen in love at first sight.
Duke Frederick then visits the young women and banishes Rosalind from court on the grounds that Rosalind detracts from Celia’s honour. Rosalind despairs, but after her father leaves, Celia insists that she will go with her cousin into exile, and the ladies plan to seek out the true duke in the Forest of Arden. For their safety, Celia disguises herself as a poor woman and calls herself Aliena. Rosalind dresses as a boy and calls herself Ganymede. They take with them jewels and the court fool Touchstone.
Eden intercepts Orlando on his journey home and warns of Oliver’s plans to murder his brother. Orlando agrees that he should flee but is unsure of where to go. Eden offers her service and savings to Orlando, and, together, they head into the forest. Once they are in the woods, Rosalind (as Ganymede), Celia (as Aliena), and Touchstone meet an old shepherd (Corin) and a young shepherd (Silvius). Silvius sighs over his unrequited love for Phoebe, and his account reminds Rosalind of her hopeless love for Orlando. Rosalind and Celia arrange with Corin to purchase the farm on which he has been employed and to keep him as head shepherd so they can live a quiet, country life.
Elsewhere in the forest, the rightful Duke and his followers enjoy singing and witty conversation. (Much of the wit is supplied by a melancholy scholar named Jaques.) Orlando interrupts and threatens the men with a sword, but when they offer the young man hospitality, Orlando apologizes, explaining that he did not expect to meet civilized people. Orlando fetches Eden, and all enjoy food and fellowship. The Duke learns that Orlando is Sir Rowland’s son of and welcomes him to the court in exile.
Back at the real court, Duke Frederick orders Oliver to find Orlando. When Oliver swears he doesn’t know where his brother is, Frederick seizes Oliver’s property and banishes him.
In the forest, everyone seems concerned with love. Orlando hangs poems declaring his love for Rosalind on trees. Rosalind finds the poems, and, as she reads aloud, Touchstone ridicules the verse. Celia reveals that the poems were written by Orlando, and that he is nearby.
Orlando and Jaques enter, bantering about Orlando’s declarations of love. Rosalind (disguised as Ganymede) encounters them and lets Orlando think she is a boy. Claiming to follow precepts taught to him by his uncle, “Ganymede” offers to cure Orlando of his love by pretending to be Rosalind – and Orlando agrees to the game to prove his love is steadfast.
Touchstone persuades a shepherdess named Audrey to marry him. Silvius continues to woo Phoebe, but she wants nothing to do with him; however, she is instantly besotted with Ganymede and uses Silvius as a go-between to send love letters. And Celia falls in love with a young man who turns out to be Oliver, who confesses to his former faults while recounting how Orlando rescued him from being eaten by a lioness.
Learning that his brother and the shepherdess “Aliena” plan to marry, Orlando decides he is no longer satisfied with flirting with “Ganymede.” The disguised Rosalind promises that she will magically satisfy the desires of Orlando (and everyone else) the next day.
At a joyous gathering with the true Duke and his followers, the goddess Juno appears, and Rosalind reveals her identity. Orlando and Rosalind marry, as do Oliver and Celia, Silvius and Pheobe, and Touchstone and Audrey. The happiness of these couples only increases when a young man named Jaques de Boys (the brother of Oliver and Orlando) arrives to announce that as Frederick rode into the forest in pursuit of his brother, he chanced to meet a monk and decided to abandon his evil ways. All plan to return to court except for Jaques.
Dr. Erin E. Kelly is an Associate Professor in the Department of English at the University of Victoria.
As You Like It and “The Love You Bear”
Dr. Erin E. Kelly
When I teach undergraduate Shakespeare courses, I tell students that it’s not entirely possible to “spoil” the ending of most of the plays. A tragedy will end in a pile of dead bodies. And a comedy will end – as Jaques puts it – with some number of “couples … coming to the ark” about to be wed. As You Like It memorably ends with four pairs of lovers receiving the blessing of the Hymen, the Ancient Greek god of marriage. Yet this play features a number of other instances of love that merit our attention.
As soon as a theatre audience in 1599 (likely at the newly opened Globe Theatre) heard the name Rosalind, they would expect a play about love if they were at all familiar with the popular prose romance Rosalynde first published by Thomas Lodge in 1590. This book is now best known as Shakespeare’s source for the plot of As You Like It, but Rosalynde had gone through four editions before Shakespeare’s play premiered, and it continued to be reprinted well into the seventeenth century. Lodge’s preface promises readers “Love anatomized” – that is, accounts of the minute details of many types of love experiences – and Shakespeare builds the play on that foundation.
The first instance of love we encounter in As You Like It takes the form of a servant’s devotion to his master. Adam tries to resolve tensions between Orlando and his older brother Oliver by invoking “your father’s remembrance,” and the old man’s unwavering loyalty to Orlando seems motivated by a commitment to the values of the deceased Sir Rowland de Boys. Eventually, Adam gets his wish that the brothers will be reconciled. Lodge’s treatise makes explicit that Rosander (his character who gets renamed Orlando) decides to save Oliver’s life because of his memory of his father, specifically his dying words that “Brothers’ amity is like the drops of Balsamum, that salveth the most dangerous sores” – in other words, brotherly love heals all wounds.
Rosalynde also offers numerous examples of how language and love interconnect. As in the play, experiences of love in Lodge’s work generate poetry. Orlando writes love poems about Rosalind. Montanus (the young shepherd Shakespeare renames as Silvius) and an old shepherd (Coridon, later called Corin) debate the nature of love in “A pleasant Eclogue.” Phoebe rejects her shepherd suitor with a song, and Saladyne (the play’s Oliver) woos Aliena by handing her a sonnet. Yet Shakespeare deviates from his source by showing that at the moments of most intense, genuine feeling, words fail – for instance, his first encounter with Rosalind leaves Orlando speechless.
Given the situation in which they find themselves, the love between Celia and Rosalind is surprising. Celia’s father has banished Rosalind’s father, and that would be reasonable grounds for resentment. If the usurping Duke Frederick is right that Rosalind’s “silence and patience” make the people favour her over his own daughter, Celia might be happy to see her cousin sent away. Yet Celia proffers the strongest possible expression of her feelings, declaring to Rosalind in language that evokes a wedding vow, “thou and I am one.” It is love that takes Celia from the court into the uncertainty and possibilities of the forest.
Indeed, the idea that love is associated with people becoming “one” gets reinforced by the play’s rendering of character names. While the rightful ruler in Roslaynde is Gerismond and the usurping brother Torismond, Shakespeare calls these figures Ferdinand and Frederick. The young Rosander who is mistreated by his older brother Saladynde is the son most like his father John of Bordeaux. Shakespeare’s play turns these character names into similar-sounding near anagrams: Orlando, Oliver, Rowland. In this way, just as the play signals the happiness of its key female characters by unifying their identities – as Rosalind/Ganymede and Celia/Aliena once again become the true Rosalind and Celia – it linguistically suggests that the resolution of conflicts between brothers is a (re)unification into one true self.
As if to underline this idea, Shakespeare gives his play an ending even more loving than that provided by Lodge. On the final page of Rosalynde, Torismond leads an army into the woods to vanquish Gerismond and the loyal courtiers who followed him into exile, but the courageous leadership of Rosader and Saladyne overcomes the usurper, and Torismond is “slain in battle.” The ending of As You Like It would therefore have surprised audiences familiar with Lodge’s work by describing a different outcome for the tyrannical Duke Frederick. An audience or reader coming to this play for the first time can still be delighted by how the play resolves by having a villain choose to embrace yet another variety of love.
Offering examples more expansive than the model of the young married couple, the play’s anatomizing of love through poetry, humour, and spectacle offers something for everyone – a chance to observe varied examples of love just “As you like it.”
Dr. Erin E. Kelly is an Associate Professor in the Department of English at the University of Victoria.
Company Biographies
Kaitlyn Alderson
Stage Manager
Kaitlyn is in her fifth year of studies at the University of Victoria pursuing a double major in writing and theatre. She is passionate about many fields of theatre including Stage Management, Directing, Playwriting, and Technical Production. Her stage management credits include Shakespeare’s Women, Problem Child (Phoenix Theatre), Reset, and Power in Silence (SATCo). She feels so honored to be able to work with such a wonderful cast and crew on this production of As You Like It. All her love to her parents and brother for their continual encouragement and support. She hopes you enjoy the show!
Stephie Bright
Rosalind
Stephie is a multidisciplinary artist currently based out of Victoria, BC. This is Stephie’s second season with the Greater Victoria Shakespeare Festival and she is thrilled to be back. When she is not producing educational videos, she fills her time acting. Selected credits include: Cassius in Julius Caesar (GVSF), Beatrice Wilde in Unity 1918 (Company C), and Mary Swanson in Middletown (CCPA). She’d like to thank her beautiful friends and family, and she hopes she can share a little joy, a little mischief, and a little love with you all this season.
Violet Brownsey
Second Lord / Dennis (Junior Company)
Violet Brownsey is a high school student who, besides being a singer songwriter, has been involved in theatre since a young age. She is super excited to be involved with GVSF this year.
Cam Culham
Duke Senior / Duke Frederick
Cam has enjoyed many summers of acting with this festival, starting back in the early 90s when the Festival was in a tent at the Inner Harbour! Cam met his longtime performing partner Daisy at GVSF, when they opened for a family version of Twelfth Night. It is a place to perform with old friends and meet new ones! As we all emerge from the shadows of the pandemic, so do many promising new actors emerge on the scene. A pleasure to act with this young and dynamic cast….and to have a real live audience! Let us entertain you!
Nathaniel Exley
Touchstone
Nathaniel is a graduate of the Canadian College of Performing arts and works in Victoria as a painter. He entered his first acting class in high school because he believed it would be an easy grade, only to receive an itch only performance can scratch. He is excited to be doing his second season with the Greater Victoria Shakespeare Festival.
LORETO ESPINOZA
Props Coordinator
Loreto is a Chilean actor and performer. In Chile she worked mostly in theatre for children and commercials. Here, she has been lucky enough to work with amazing companies like Atomic Vaudeville, Puente Theatre, Theatre Skam, Story Theatre and Impulse Theatre. Loreto likes water bodies, making sounds, making crafts, moving and the playful feeling of creating with others. She's very excited about being part of AYLI crew. The satisfaction in finding the right prop is the best !
Megan farrell
Running Crew
Megan, currently a third-year Production and Management student in the University of Victoria’s Theatre program, is thrilled to be working alongside the incredibly talented company of As You Like It. She hopes you enjoy watching the show just as much as she’s enjoyed working on it!
David Gardiner
Corin
David is an actor and musician who recently graduated from the performance focus of the University of Victoria’s theatre program. Some previous credits include Hamlet, Romeo, and Demetrius in Shakespeare's Women and an ensemble role in Othello (Phoenix Theatre). He is overjoyed for his first performance after graduation to be a Shakespeare play, and hopes it is the first of many. He feels so lucky to be working alongside such an amazing cast and crew to bring you this production of As You Like It!
Gaby Girard
Stage Management Intern
Gaby is an emerging theatre creator and performer from Victoria/Lək̓ʷəŋən British Columbia. She has just finished her third year at Dalhousie University working towards a combined Honours Degree in Acting, Cinema and Media Studies. With a passion for both film and theatre, Gaby has produced two short films (2019 and 2020) and worked as an Assistant Stage Manager for the King's Theatrical Society's production of Him (2019). She gained two Trinity College London Level 3 Speech and Dramatic Arts Certificates with Distinction in 2018 and 2019. Recent Stage Credits: Lumiere, Beauty and the Beast; Alice Faulkner, Sherlock Holmes.
Aidan guerreiro
Orlando
This is Aidan’s second show with the GVSF and he is very excited to take on Orlando. You may recognize him from Cymbeline (GVSF), Problem Child, Comic Potential and 7 Stories (Phoenix Theatre). He has also worked with Intrepid Theatre's 2021 Victoria Fringe Festival as a front of house manager and volunteer co-ordinator.
Jaren Guerreiro
Oliver / Sir Oliver Martext / Choreographer / Stage Fight Coordinator
Jaren Guerreiro is an actor, dancer, and creator who was raised in Victoria, BC. At age nine he began training in dance at STAGES Performing Arts School. He recently graduated from the Canadian College of Performing Arts where he had the privilege of meeting Barbara for the first time. Recent credits include: Urinetown, Falsework, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, The Quest (CCPA), Beauty and the Beast (VOS), and Cleopatra (Ballet Étoile). Jaren is thrilled to be in his first GVSF production.
Kelsey Launier
Phoebe / Eden
Kelsey is a 26 year old actor living in Victoria, BC. She grew up in Oliver, BC, and has loved theatre from a young age. Upon moving to Victoria and attending the Canadian College of Performing Arts, she quickly learned how much fun Shakespeare could be, and was hooked. This is her second time being involved with GVSF, playing Cornelius in the 2021 production of Cymbeline. Other credits include: Constance in Goodnight Desdemona, Good Morning Juliet, Archangel Michael in Paradise Lost, and Deputy Mayor in If/Then.
Grace Martin
Celia
Grace first started working with the GVSF when she was in high school. Now a graduate of CCPA, Grace has previously been in GVSF’s productions of Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Tempest, and Cymbeline, making As You Like It Grace’s fourth show with the festival! Some of Grace’s other favourite roles have been Little Sally in Urinetown, Herta/McFoo in Falsework, and Marianne in Disaster!. Grace would like to thank her friends and family for their love and support. She would also like to thank the team behind GVSF, both onstage and off!
Michelle Mitchell
Costume Coordinator
Michelle is excited to be back for her third season with the Festival. Recent Victoria credits include Greater Victoria Shakespeare Festival: costume designer/Cymbeline, Two Gentlemen of Verona and Julius Caesar; Theatre Inconnu: Justine/Frankenstein; Mother, Wife /Tenant Haymovitch; Langham Court Theatre: Marianne/Sense & Sensibility; Mary Ann/Escape from Happiness and Better Living; Myrtle Mae/Harvey; and Stripper/The Graduate. Much love to her husband for helping to instill a love of theatre in their children, and to her children for always bringing their joy and love to all they do. Thank you for supporting the arts!
Hannah Ockenden
Amiens / Audrey / Le Beau / Costumer
This is Hannah’s third season working with GVSF and she is thoroughly delighted to be back both as an actor, and on the costume team. Hannah has spent most of the past few years working as a touring actor in theatre in education in Europe and and Asia (Whitehorse Theatre), gathering knowledge about the world and herself along the way. Since returning to Victoria last year, she has worked mostly in various facets of theatre management (Fringe 2021, CCPA) and and in costumes (The Wonderheads, A Christmas Carol). Hannah is just brimming with joy to be performing again, and hopes that you enjoy this whimsical, fairytale story of all kinds of love!
Karen Lee Pickett
Artistic Director
Karen is a theatre artist and teacher originally from Caddo territory who has studied and performed Shakespeare for over 30 years. As an actor, roles include Lady Macbeth, Cressida, Adriana, and Malvolio. On lək̓ʷəŋən and W̱SÁNEĆ land, she has worked with Intrepid Theatre, Langham Court, William Head on Stage, Theatre Inconnu, Theatre SKAM and Ensemble Laude. Directing credits include Cymbeline, Macbeth, Spit Delaney’s Island, Comedy of Errors, and As You Like It. Karen has been with the GVSF since 2012, and created the company’s repertory acting program, as well as its education program.
Sarah Danielle Pitman
Front of House Manager
This is Sarah's third season working with the Greater Victoria Shakespeare Festival. She began as an enchanted audience member before becoming a volunteer, and finally, a member of the crew. Sarah is thrilled to be back working as Front of House Manager and occasional minstrel for the Shakespeare Fest. When not conducting audiences with GVSF, she can also be found volunteering at various other theatrical events around Lək̓ʷəŋən territories, working at the Belfry Theatre, and daydreaming while she is supposed to be writing.
Barbara Poggemiller*
Director
Barbara has a long career in Canadian Theatre as an actor, director and teacher. She has directed/ performed with Centaur and Geordie Theatre, Montreal; Prairie Theatre Exchange; Winnipeg; Debajehmajig Theatre, Manitoulin Island, Globe Theatre, Regina; Carousel Theatre, St. Catherines; Young Peoples Theatre, Toronto; Kaleidoscope and the Greater Victoria Shakespeare Festival. She has directed for Senior actors for 15 years of shows at Somerset house, Victoria, and taught and directed for 8 years with Mosaic Theatre, Victoria. Recently she performed for the Citadel Theatre, Edmonton in a re-imagined Tempest. The experience included an exhilarating month training and studying at the Banff Centre for the Arts. She taught and directed for the Canadian College of Performing Arts and Victoria Academy of Dramatic Arts, Victoria. She is thrilled to be directing As You Like It. She is grateful to her family and friends, her beautiful daughters and grandkids who give her courage every day.
Sian Spiller-Tisserand
Assistant Stage Manager / Juno
Sian Spiller-Tisserand is an Indigenous actor, stage manager, and director who is currently a student at the Canadian College of Performing Arts, where she was honoured to work on Love and Information as Assistant Stage Manager. Sian is from Castlegar, BC, the ancestral and unceded land of the Ktunaxa, Syilx, and Sinixt Nations, and currently situated on the traditional territories of the Lək̓ʷəŋən peoples, Victoria, BC. She is truly grateful to be a part of the festival and experience Shakespeare’s work on this beautiful land.
Willis Taylor
Jaques / Music Composer + Director
Willis is a veteran actor, singer, composer and director originally from Thornton Heath, South London, England. He was a member of The Young Vic Theatre as a teen, and has been a long time theatre teacher, director and musical theatre producer. He won a Best Actor from Theatre BC in 2004 for "Hoke" in Alfred Uhry's Driving Miss Daisy, and appeared as Cymbeline in GVSF's 2021 show, Cymbeline. He is very happy to be playing Jaques, and to have written some sundry notes of music for this play.
Jesse Wilson
William / First Lord / Jacques de Boys
Jesse Wilson is an Arts student at Camosun College. He has been in several community theatre productions by Tumbleweeds, such as Through the Looking Glass, Brahm and The Angel and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. More recently he played Lior in O’ My God by Bema Productions. Jesse was also in an educational DVD series by Hilary Pryor and May Street Productions. Jesse has been in Theatre Arts since the age of 9 with Tumbleweeds Theatre and Stage-Struck Youth Summer Theatre at Langham Court Theatre. He continues to take vocal lessons from Kim Sweetgrass & plays piano by ear.
Megan Wong
Intimacy Director
Megan Wong (she/they) is an internationally trained intimacy professional working primarily in the Pacific Northwest. Her primary background is in classical ballet, movement theatre, and psychology. Her practice incorporates techniques from her background in special education, mental health, and sexual assault crisis response. She believes in collaborative, process-based art and finds beauty in the unique circumstance of all her performers.
Candace Woodland
General Manager
Candace is a graduate of the Canadian College of Performing Arts. They also hold an Honours Degree in Sociology, and a Diploma in Social Justice Studies from University of Victoria. They are passionate about queer education, travel, video games, hiking, books, and house plants. In September, they’ll be returning to UVic to begin their Master’s degree in Sociology with a focus on Trans/Non-Binary studies. They began performing with the festival in 2013, and became General Manager in 2018.
Ciarán Volke
Silvius / Charles
Ciarán Volke (he/they) is an actor, director, and writer based in the unceded Lək̓ʷəŋən territories, colloquially known as Victoria. His work is comedic, unhinged, and honest, and he hopes you feel this way for As You Like It. Ciarán is so excited to be a part of this Summer’s production, and to work with some incredible artists. Selected credits: Gorgo, Puente Theatre; A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Green World Theatre; Cowboy, Paper Street Theatre; Othello, Phoenix Theatre.
