2025 CREATIVE TEAM
Mercedes Bátiz-Benét
Blood Wedding
ADAPTER & DIRECTOR
Mercedes is a Mexican-born, award-winning director, writer, and multidisciplinary artist. She is the Artistic Director of Puente Theatre and Co-Artistic Producer of the Great Works Theatre Festival. Her emotionally potent, surrealist work has toured nationally and internationally. She received the 2014 Canadian Stage Award for Direction (El Jinete – A Mariachi Opera), the 2020 JAYMAC Outstanding Production Award (Fado), and the 2022 PARC Mid-Career Artist Award. She was named Distinguished Alumna by UVic’s Faculty of Fine Arts in 2015. Mercedes champions immigrant and culturally diverse voices through ritual, movement, and poetic language. She is the adaptor and director of Blood Wedding: The Forest Remembers, a bold reimagining of Lorca’s classic rooted in land, longing, and the fear of the outsider. She offers this production as a ritual of memory, longing, and resistance — and is grateful to share it with you.
Brian Richmond
La Bête
DIRECTOR
The Founding Artistic Director of Blue Bridge Repertory Theatre, Brian Richmond is a multi-award-winning producer, director, dramaturge and educator who has created work for most of the major theatres across Canada for more than five decades. The director of more than 150 productions he has worked with several of his generations leading playwrights and has served as the artistic leader of several Canadian theatres including Saskatoon’s Persephone Theatre (which he co-founded), Montreal Playwrights’ Workshop, Thunder Bay’s Magnus Theatre and Toronto’sTheatre Passe Muraille. He is also a professor in the Department of Theatre at UVic where heserved as Chair from 2001-2008.
Lia Crowe
Blood Wedding
CHOREOGRAPHER
Lia is a photographer, creative director and flamenco dancer and teacher. With an extensive dance background Lia was first hooked by flamenco at the age of 18, years later she began studying flamenco more seriously which led to further intensive studies in Spain. She has been performing flamenco locally ever since including as a dancer in Pacific Operas production of Ainadamar in 2024. In 2022 Lia presented a Flamenco Film she directed titled The Letter – a love letter to the art of Flamenco at the Victoria Flamenco Festival. She has been able to share her love of art form as a flamenco teacher since 2014. Whether with dance or photography, visual storytelling is at the core of Lia’s creative expression and community & connection at the core of her values.
Gareth Owen
Blood Wedding
MUSIC DIRECTOR
Gareth is a world-class flamenco guitarist and musical director. He has released two albums—Gareth Owen Flamenco Guitar and El Cobre—and performed at flamenco festivals in Victoria, Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, and in Jerez de la Frontera, Spain. As musical director of Palabra Flamenco, he tours nationally, blending flamenco with English-language poetry. He has collaborated with acclaimed artists including Jan Zwicky, Garth Martens, and Denise Yeo in the Dark Sounds series.
Gareth has shared the stage with international flamenco artists such as Jesus Álvarez, Coral de los Reyes, and Gema Moneo. He teaches at Flamenco Victoria and continues to uphold the spirit and traditions of flamenco. in every performance, arrangement, and class.
Karyn McCallum
Blood Wedding & La Bête
SET DESIGNER
Karyn has designed set, costume and projection designs across Canada and in England. Envisioning the scenic environment, costume, projected media and the delivery thereof as characters in the story, whether it be a new work or re-telling of a classical play. Karyn’s work has ranged from designing for traditional text-based theatre, to devising experimental work in non-traditional spaces. Regardless as to the format or the origin of the production, Karyn honours the contribution of her collaborators as amongst the greatest strengths in her process. Recent projects have been at the Shaw Festival, Chemainus Theatre Festival, and Theatre NorthWest BC. With humility and respect, Karyn honours and acknowledges the privilege she experiences at the expense of the lək̓ʷəŋən-speaking Peoples, now known as the Esquimalt and Songhees Nations upon whose unceded land we work and play.
Itai Erdal
Blood Wedding & La Bête
LIGHTING DESIGNER
Itai is an award-winning lighting designer, writer and performer, and the artistic director of The Elbow Theatre, for whom he co-wrote and performed in Soldiers of Tomorrow (winner of the 2024 Lustrum Award), Hyperlink, This Is Not A Conversation and A Very Narrow Bridge. Itai’s first solo show: How to Disappear Completely has had 27 remounts and won the best director award at the 2013 Summerworks Festival (James Long). Itai has designed over 350 shows for theatre, dance and opera companies in over 50 cities around the world, including 20 shows for the Arts Club Theatre, 15 shows for Studio 58 and 11 shows for the Stratford Festival. He won six Jessie Richardson Awards, Toronto’s Dora Mavor Moore Award, a Winnipeg Theatre Award, the Jack King Award, Victoria’s Spotlight Choice Award, a Guthrie Award and the Design Award at the Dublin Fringe Festival. He was shortlisted to the Siminovitch Prize in 2018 and 2024.
Donnie Tejani
Blood Wedding & La Bête
COSTUME DESIGNER
Donnie has built his career wearing many hats in the wardrobe department and has established himself in Vancouver as a dresser, wig stylist and Jessie and Ovation Award winning costume designer. After years of learning tricks from the 'front lines' as Head Dresser at the Arts Club, he shifted focus to design; going on to work with companies such as TUTS, Neworld Theatre and Vancouver Opera. He satisfies his cravings for work behind the scenes by touring internationally as the Wardrobe Supervisor for Kidd Pivot. Donnie’s work can also be seen on screen on the runways of drag competition series’ such as RuPaul’s Drag Race: All Stars, Drag Race Canada and Call Me Mother. Upcoming: East Van Panto: West Van Story (Theatre Replacement), Annie (Gateway Theatre) @donnietejani
Claudia Fraser
Blood Wedding & La Bête
COSTUME ASSISTANT / HAIR & MAKEUP
Claudia is a Theatre Design student at the University of Victoria with a background in costume and makeup design. They began designing in 2015 and studied fashion design at the University of the Fraser Valley. Recent credits include costume design for The Killing Game (Phoenix Theatre), ON GUARD (SATCO), and Infinity Garden (Gut-Punch Theatre). They also served as Assistant Hair and Makeup Design Coordinator for UVic’s 2022–23 season, and as Stylist and Coordinator for 2023–24. Claudia has worked in many capacities both on and offstage, bringing a wide-ranging creative perspective to each production.
Emily Friesen
Blood Wedding & La Béte
PROPS DESIGNER
Emily is a multidisciplinary designer, artist, and graduate of the University of Victoria theatre program. She is delighted to be a part of this inaugural festival. Select credits: If You Could Read My Mind, Kindred (Belfry), Women of the Fur Trade (Firehall Arts Centre) We Are Boy Band, Metamorphoses (Studio 58), The Last Five Years, Ride The Cyclone, Salt Water Moon, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (BlueBridge), The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, The Allihipporhinocrocodil-ligtor (Kaleidoscope), Snow White (Carousel), The Mixolydian (Green Thumb), Othello, The Children’s Hour (UVic Phoenix Theatre), and It's Just Black Hair (Staging Equality). http://emilyfriesen-theatredesigner.com/
Aidan Dunsmuir
Blood Wedding
SOUND DESIGNER
Aidan is a graduate of the Phoenix Theatre Program at UVic, studying acting, directing, and design. His sound design credits include: Les Liaisons Dangereuses directed by Fran Gebhard (UVic), 7eventy 7even (SKAM Theatre) directed by Pamela Bethel, an assisted sound design for The Belfry’s production of 4000 Miles directed by Anita Rochon, Fado: The Saddest Music in the World directed by Mercedes Bátiz-Benét (Puente Theatre/Firehall Arts Centre) and Miss Julie (Blue Bridge Repertory Theatre) directed by Mercedes Bátiz-Benét. In the wake of the pandemic, Aidan began a new career as an electrician, and hopes to merge both fields in the future.
Alex Wlasenko
La Bête
SOUND DESIGNER
Alex is a writer, director, comedian, bassist, sound designer, video designer, improviser, and physicist originally from Montreal.
Pedro M. Siqueira
La Bête
MUSICAL ARRANGEMENTS
Pedro is a Brazilian performer and musician with a back-ground in acting, physical theatre, and dance. He trained at the Pablo Ibarluzea International School in Spain and the Canadian College of Performing Arts. Recent theatre credits include If You Could Read My Mind (Belfry Theatre), and The Wilds and A Wonder heads Christmas Carol (WONDERHEADS). On screen, he has appeared in Rupture, KNOTS, and FIFA25 for EA Sports. Pedro brings a bold physical presence and a collaborative spirit to every project, and he is excited to be part of the very first Great Works of Theatre Festival.
Follow his journey at @pedro.msiqueira
Paul Destrooper
La Bête
OPENING DANCE CHOREOGRAPHER
Artistic and Executive Director of Ballet Victoria since 2007, Montreal born Destrooper has built the company into a Canadian cultural asset that presents four yearly productions, and tours internationally, showcasing innovative and critically acclaimed works.
Recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, and the Paul Harris Fellowship, Destrooper has over three decades of experience from a prominent international dance career. A lead dancer with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, Alberta Ballet and Oregon Ballet Theatre, Paul holds a BA from UVIC and was twice the recipient of the A. Deloume Scholarship. He has created over 40 works and 12 full-length ballets.