The Or Festival is a passion project. We are dedicating our time on a volunteer basis. As a result, 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. All profits from the festival are shared equally among the cast, crew members and organizers. We are very grateful to the amazing artists who live in Vancouver and who make festivals possible by submitting.

Core Artistic Team

 

Curatorial Team

Mary Littlejohn is an award-winning interdisciplinary artist who has appeared on stages and behind the scenes from Vancouver to New York to Australia. She is a founding Co-Artistic Director of Fabulist Theatre, where she has written/directed The Untold Legend of Imogen Flight (2020), Better Than This (2019), Hearts and Stones (staged reading – 2018), and curated/assembled the new collaborative digital musical Homing In (2022). Her new play Poetry In Motion, premieres as a staged reading at the 2023 New Waves Festival in Nanaimo (the unceded ancestral territory of the Snuneymuxw First Nation). Mary is the writer/producer of the audio drama Golden Ash from That’s Not Canon Productions, which is available for free on all major podcasting platforms. In her spare time, she writes reviews and recaps at www.tvfanatic.com.

Sebastian Ochoa Mendoza is a Venezuelan writer and filmmaker who moved to Vancouver to study at the Univeristy of British Columbia, double-majoring in Film Studies and Creative Writing. During his time at UBC, he directed two short plays for UBC Players Club’s Festival Dionysia, starred in another, acted in two musicals, wrote a full-length musical staged by the UBC Musical Theatre Troupe (Before We Go, 2017), and composed the music for a local original musical production (Albireo, 2019). He currently works as a content curator and script analyst for a film and television production company in Mexico City.

Introductions

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 (2021) was showcased in the Stage One Festival of New Canadian Work at the Lunchbox Theatre in Calgary.

Julia Abreu holds a BA in Cultural Production at UFF, one of the top Brazilian universities and an Acting degree at the ETET Martins Penna, the oldest and more preeminent conservatory of Latin America. She has been working for the last 10 years as a producer with film and theatre. She was an event producer for Rumble Theatre in Vancouver in 2022 and an intern at ANCINE (Brazilian Nacional Cinema Agency) at the Economic Development Superintendence in 2019, where she was in charge of planning meetings, participating in research for the development of cultural policies and tracking status of different film projects. Julia was part of The OR Festival in 2022 as an actress and is joining the 4th one as a Stage Manager this year.

Stefanie Grimaldi (she/her), lighting designer, born and raised in São Paulo, Brazil. Sometimes a little bit too passionate, and proud to be part of the LGBTQ+ community. She changed a career full of spreadsheets and business suits for the lights and show blacks. Stefanie moved to Vancouver in 2022, to pursue her dreams, and is currently studying production at Studio 58 theatre school. She is privileged to work, learn, and grow on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh nations. She’s thrilled to be part of the Or Festival!

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.

Tyler Dumoulin is a composer and sound designer based out of Vancouver. He completed a BA in music at Trinity Western University in 2015. Recent theatre credits includevocal arrangement and live sound design for Lucia Frangione’s Cariboo Magi (Far From The Tree Productions), intense fight music for Shakespeare’s Henry V(Stone Throw Productions) and sitcom soundtracks for Dave Deveau’s Tiny Replicas (Rumble Theatre) as a part of the 2018 Tremor’s Festival.