The Or Festival is a passion project. Our artistic team will shift and change each year depending on artist availability. Our goal is to have a platform where local artists may show-case their work, share their voice and connect with the community. We are very grateful to the amazing artists who live in Vancouver and who make festivals possible by submitting.

Curatorial Team

Zahida Rahemtulla is a playwright who has worked in newcomer housing, literacy, and community development for many years. Her first play, The Wrong Bashir, a farcical comedy about the Ismaili community, premiered in Vancouver to a sold-out run and critical acclaim in 2023 with Touchstone Theatre, and was picked up for a Toronto premiere with Crow’s Theatre in 2024. Her second play, The Frontliners, a comedic drama about refugee settlement won a Playwrights Guild of Canada Tom Hendry Award, Theatre BC’s Play of Special Merit Award, the Fringe New Play Prize, and was runner-up for the national Voaden Prize in Playwriting. Zahida is currently working with Toronto’s Nightswimming Theatre on a project to design training programs for racially diverse actors aged 55+ to build capacity in this demographic, and serves as the Inclusion Coordinator at Blind Tiger Comedy in Vancouver. She loves teaching and working with new playwrights and in education. She has worked with Tarragon Theatre’s East of Tarragon Project in Scarborough and currently works with Capilano University in the Community Development and Outreach Department. 

Howard Dai is a Taiwanese actor, writer, director, and theatre maker based in so-called Vancouver whose work has been seen across Canada. His performances and creations have existed in theatre, films, public spaces, Zoom screens, Google Sheets, automated phone calls, interactive websites, and virtual reality. As an actor, he was most recently seen onstage in Halifax, Ottawa, and Stratford.He was the 2022 digital-artist-in-residence with PuSh Festival (Vancouver, Canada) and Royal Court Theatre (London, UK) with his play 菠蘿麵包Pineapple Bun, which explores nostalgia and diasporic guilt set in quotidian Taiwan. His most recent work-in-development Dream Machine is an interactive game show about immigration where the audience gambles on their dreams in an arcade. He is a member of the Five Blessings Collective, an associate artist with rice & beans theatre, and holds a BFA in Theatre Performance from SFU School for the Contemporary Arts . He is a recipient of a 2025 Siminovitch Theatre Foundation Emerging Artist Grant, selected by finalist Adrienne Wong. www.howarddai.com

THANK YOU

Landon Krentz has been involved in the Or Festival since 2023 as a playwright, director, dramaturg, performer, and supporter. The Deaf-Led Program exists because of his profound support and vision. We are deeply grateful to him. In 2024, Brenda-Lee Boubard’s play Nurse…HELP! recieved proffessional development at the Deaf Artists Retreat, where Landon is the executive producer. Thank you to the performers Caroline Herbert, Matthew Courtemanche, and Mustafa Alabssi for their support in developing Nurse…HELP! as well. 

Landon Krentz is a Deaf performing artist from Saskatchewan, Canada. He discovered his love for theatrelater in life when he learned sign language. He quickly became a prominent figure in Canadian arts, trying out different forms like ASL opera, visual stories with music, and plays in both ASL and English. Krentz is known for his unique performances that combine physicality, visual language, and sign language. He wanted to go beyond just relying on ASL interpretation, which often gives only a partial experience. As a Deaf artist who’s fluent in both American Sign Language (ASL) and English, Krentz is the Artistic Director and an ASL performer for theatre. He’s all about bringing Deaf and hearing audiences together in his art. His efforts were recognized when he received the Award of Merit for Inclusion and Access in 2018 from the Western Institute of Deaf and Hard of Hearing, now Wavefront Communication Access Centre. In 2018, Krentz teamed up with Deaf West Theatre to create “Awakening Deaf Theatre in Canada.” This project aimed to bring Deaf artists from across the country together to work on an ASL musical based on “Spring Awakening,” a Broadway show. The project united Deaf artists from almost all provinces. Krentz has worked on a Deaf-led ASL Opera based in Vancouver, BC. He’s both the playwright and performer, and the opera explores Deaf culture, queerness, and the human experience using sign language’s rhythmic beauty. Krentz‘s accomplishments also include his play “100 Years of Darkness.” This play, produced by Inside Out Theatre, tells the story of Deaf students in the 1880s who were subjected to cruel experiments trying to erase their language and culture. The play sheds light on the effects of banning sign language. He’s not stopping there. Krentz is currently developing two more projects: “The Confidence of a Deaf Queer Human,” created with the Soulpepper Academy, and an adaptation of “The Little Prince” for Deaf theatre. His journey continues to shape the arts and bring Deaf experiences to the forefront.

Dramaturgs

Chris Dodd is a Treaty 6 based (Edmonton) award-winning Deaf actor, playwright, accessibility advocate and Governor General Innovation Award finalist. He is the founder and artistic director of SOUND OFF, Canada’s national festival devoted to Deaf performance. Chris holds a degree from the University of Alberta’s Drama program and has been working within Edmonton’s theatre community, and across Canada, for over 25 years. His play, Deafy, has been touring across Canada since 2021 and recently had its first international performance in The Hague, Netherlands in October. His Vancouver theatre work includes co-directing Catfish with Alley Theatrewhich premiered at the rEvolver Festival in 2023. In 2019 he was the recipient of the Guy Laliberté Prize for innovation and creative leadership by the Canada Council for the Arts. 

Mary Littlejohn is an interdisciplinary artist living on the traditional unceded land of the Snuneymuxw. In 2016, she co-founded Fabulist Theatre, a company committed to uplifting underrepresented voices. Her feminist period comedy The Untold Legend Of Imogen Flight has had successful productions in Vancouver and Nanaimo. Her play Maggie was performed at Or Festival 5. In November 2025, her play Poetry In Motion won Best Play and Best Original Script at the Vancouver Island One-Act Play Festival. She is a graduate of Capilano University’s Musical Theatre program and member of the Playwrights Guild Of Canada. 

 

Torien C. Cafferata (they/he) is an AuDHD interdisciplinary artist originally from Treaty 4 and Treaty 6 territory where they trained as a performer, playwright, dramaturge, director, and educator before coming to Simon Fraser University for their MFA. Their arts practice spans a host of forms: devised theatre, social practice, site-specific, mixed-reality, game design, ludology, and Pochinko clown. He has served as president and Dramaturgical Committee Chair for the Saskatchewan Playwrights Centre and has dramaturged for Sum Theatre, Gordon Tootoosis Nīkānīwin Theatre, the Floyd Theatre Festival, and the Or Festival. He is also an avid trifler with digital platforms and lo-fi aesthetics, often using them in explorations of labour, play, madness/disability, interpassivity, non-places, and hauntology. As co-Artistic Director of It’s Not A Box Theatre they have toured performances and installations to the Prague Quadrennial, SummerWorks, and across Fringe Festivals.

CORE ARTISTIC TEAM

Olivia Etey is a Vancouver-based playwright, producer and the creator of the Or Festival. She graduated from UBC with a double major in Creative Writing and English Honours. Her produced plays include: Foreplay (2015), her musical: The Midnight Serenade (2015), Living on the Grid (2016), which debuted at the Vancouver FRINGE Festival as part of The Only Animal’s Generation Hot Series, The Hoarder (2017) and her juke-box Opera Forever Hold Your Peace (Opera Unbound, 2022). Olivia’s play Woman Against Gravity (2024) was short-listed for the Lee Playwrighting Award. 

Ashley Mann, she/her, identifies as a culture facilitator, creator, and performer. Currently working with OR festival for the third time this year, she envisions building a bridge between the hearing and deaf and hard of hearing community in the theatre world. Ashley’s goals aim to foster inclusivity and connection within diverse communities. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/fTppfG4R8ao?feature=share 

 

Bernice Paet is an emerging stage manager and interdisciplinary artist who creates performance works building on her curiosities in collage art, light, and video projection. Moved by the love she finds around her, and in other cases, has lost, her works often pull from her lived experiences, exploring themes such as mental health, identity, and the complex web of human relations. She is a graduate of Simon Fraser University’s Theatre Production & Design program. Select stage management credits include: it is for when you meet me (Hold On Let Go), The Frontliners (vAct), God’s a Drag (Vancouver Fringe Festival), East Side Story (Project Limelight Society), and Soft Tongues: a bioacoustic opera (rEvolver Festival). https://bernicebpaet.wixsite.com/bernicepaet 

Andrea Echeverría. Born and raised in Costa Rica, Andrea is a passionate theatre artist whose journey has danced between the artistic and the holistic for over 16 years. With a BA in Dramatic Arts and a postgraduate degree in Teaching Dramatic Arts, she has worked extensively as an actress, teacher, director, and producer—on stage, on screen, and in classrooms. She has performed in several professional theatre productions, including a standout performance as Ashlee in Dance Nation at Open Stage Theatre (Colorado, USA), which was recognized for its powerful monologue by Stage Colorado Reviews in 2024. Her work explores a wide range of styles, including classic, modern, experimental, physical theatre, shadow work, and live performance. She has participated in international theatre workshops and shared her love of performance across diverse communities, For her, it’s not just about performing—it’s about using theatre as a tool for connection, healing and growth. For the past three years, she has worked as a life creativity coach, blending the healing power of performance with spiritual practices. She created her own program, a unique method designed to help people reconnect with themselves on a deeper level.

Stefanie Lott Grimaldi (she/her) is an emerging costume and lighting designer. She began her theatre journey in São Paulo, Brazil, where she designed and created costumes, masks, and props for a variety of productions. Now she has the privilege to work, learn and grow on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, also known as Vancouver, BC. She brings a versatile and imaginative aesthetic to her work, blending the surreal with the everyday to create richly symbolic and resonant designs. Her approach is rooted in the belief that no idea is too abstract or complex for the stage, every concept holds the potential for transformation. Collaboration and community are central to her practice. Recent credits include Costume Designer for Guillty as Fin (Studio 58); Costume Design for Fly, Love (Studio 58); Asst. Lighting Designer for Baggage (Studio 58) Asst. to the Costume Designer for Blood Wedding (Studio 58); Seamstress/ Wardrobe hand: Madonna, The Celebration Tour (2024); Missy Elliot, The Missy Eliot Experience (2024); Taylor Swift, The Eras Tour (2024); Chris Brown, 11:11 Tour (2024); Costume and Props Designer for O Bilontra (Teatro Escola Macunaíma, Brazil); Costume and Props Designer for Curral Grande (Teatro Escola Macunaíma); Lighting Designer (Or Festival, 2023); Lighting Designer (Run N Gun Film Festival, 2024-2025); Production Crew, LX (Bard on the Beach, 2023-2026). 

Keagan Elrick is a graduate of Studio 58. Living with a love of and passion for lighting. As a gender–fluid non–binary designer they love working with masculine, feminine and other aspects of themselves to add to the creative process. As a designer they paint the performers and their environments with light, working to build an atmosphere that pulls the audience in. Recent design credits include: Six of One (Studio 58), Beirut (Cleverbird Productions), Trans Scripts (Zee Zee & Frank Theatre), The 70’s Show (Vancouver Men’s Chorus), Centurions (Centurions Project), Alice in Glitterland (Geekenders), Most Massive Woman Wins (SplendiferousProductions), Centurions (The Centurions Project), Hello & Goodbye (A Room Somewhere), The 70’s Show (Vancouver Men’s Chorus), Awkward Hug (O Albatross) Theory (Rumble: Tremors Festival), Illicit (Illicit Productions) Four Play (Studio 58), Who Killed Gertrude Crump? (Monster Theatre). They love playing with the emotions of lights, and how lighting effects the tone and reality of what is being poured on stage. Playing with the psychology of lighting and colour theory. They are delighted to be a part of this wonderfully magical production.