Directors
ABOUT THE TEAM
We are so grateful to have thirteen directors in the Or Festival 5, each dedicated to one new play and bringing that script to life. We are ecstatic to have this inspiring team of humans onboard.
To Our Directors: Thank you for inculcating this festival with your beautiful humanity and artistic prowess. We love you. – Or Festival Team
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JENNIFER BURGMANN
Director Dramaturg
Actor/writer Jennifer Burgmann was born in Calgary, Alberta, and currently resides Surrey, British Columbia. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in Theatre from Simon Fraser University, and is currently a student at the Realwheels Acting Academy. Her work in performance includes solo pieces, one-act and full-length plays, and multidisciplinary collaborative projects. While at university, she took a directing course, and this experience ignited an interest in this area of the craft. Her first professional opportunity arose in 2023 when she was offered the role of Assistant Director for Teenage Dick directed by Ashlie Corcoran and presented by Arts Club Theatre Company in collaboration with Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival and Realwheels Theatre.
In 2009, Jennifer developed a rare illness which resulted in disability and the necessity of a power wheelchair. Her many stories about her experiences have been published on The Mighty, Yahoo, and MSN. After 40 years of writing in the form of prose, she has recently developed a keen interest in playwriting and is currently in the process of writing her first plays, A Cripmas Carol and Riding the Dragon.
Jennifer feels compelled to share stories about personal growth, and is committed to supporting disability representation, inclusion and accessibility in Arts and Culture.
LANDON KRENTZ
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 tan 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.
TEANA-MARIE SMITH
Director
Teana-Marie Smith (Producer/Actor) is from Toronto, Ontario and of Jamaican heritage. She has worked in the Vancouver film industry for over 16 years. Having studied in Los Angeles, Vancouver and Toronto, she has been credited on locally filmed series including, The Good Doctor (ABC), Riverdale (CW) Altered Carbon (NETFLIX) and several others. She produced her first independent feature in 2019, which played at the London Film Festival in 2020. Most recently, she produced a short film for The Crazy8s film festival in 2023. She is also a 2022 Leo Award Winning producer for the short film, The Blactor. This will be Teana-Marie’s first-time directing and she is absolutely elated to have this opportunity and grateful to do it with the Or Festival.
CAULEE WATRIN
Director
Vivian (Xiao Wen) Li is a queer writer, editor, singer-songwriter, director, and interdisciplinary artist. Her creative works are forthcoming or can be found in The New Quarterly, The Massachusetts Review, The Fiddlehead, filling station, and CV2, among others. Most recently, she was Shortlisted for the The Peter Hinchcliffe Short Fiction Award, Longlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize, Shortlisted for the Vancouver City Poems Contest, and Longlisted for The Edna Staebler Personal Essay Contest. Her past acting/ playwright credits include Little Women (UBC Players Club) and Guitar Strings (Green College Players; Coffeehouse Theatre Society; Festival Dionysia). She was also a director at Brave New Play Rites 2022. Her first directorial, screenwriting, and producer short musical dramedy, In Silence, We Sing, debuted at the Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival 2022. She is currently working on her thesis novel (funded by SSHRC CGS-M) engaging with themes of Buddhism, sisterhood, and reincarnation. Her debut chapbook, Someday I Promise I’ll Love You (845 Press, 2022) was published in November 2022. A MFA candidate at UBC and an editor for PRISM international and Augur, she can be reached @vivianlicreates.
EBONY GOODEN
Co-Director & Dramaturg (with Brenda-Lee Boubard)
Ebony R. Gooden is the only Black Deaf artist living in Calgary, Canada. She is an emerging artist, filmmaker and activist. She believes it is important to create a safe space for Black, Indigenous and People of Colour (BIPOC) Deaf artists in Calgary. She works as the Marketing Coordinator for Inside Out Theatre and is a consultant for EDIA (Equity, Diversity, Inclusivity and Accessibility) under the Calgary Arts Development (CADA). Her unique voice has intersectionality layers, which allows her to show hearing people what it is like to be Black and Deaf. To achieve that goal, she has participated in the CSIF and Storyhive program, Community Stories, to create a short documentary, “Miscommunication in her Language”. She is also being supported by AFA and CCA in her creation of a short animation.
She is also a co-founder of SURVIVANCE Collective, Black Deaf Residency, and a partner of the Unify Deaf Film Festival. Ebony is a board member of the QuickDraw Animation Society and a consultant for Calgary Arts Development.
Not only that but as a director, she has worked in various theatre productions such as After Faust, The Two Natasha and Survivance Monologue. She also acted in theatre productions such as Caustic Effect, Oh! Clare Dance and 100 Years of Darkness. For the film industry, she produced and directed, “His Hands, His Art” and “The Two Natashas”.
BRENDA-LEE BOUBARD
Co-Director (with Ebony Gooden)
Brenda-Lee Boubard (She/Her) is a Mètis (Cree/Ojibwa) Deaf Artist. She was born in Winnipeg, MB then moved to Calgary, AB then to Vancouver, BC. She is currently writing a graphic novel titled Apocalypse/fantastic. Brenda attended the Youth Canada Tournament for the Deaf (YCTD) in 2013 and 2017, The Flying Hands in 2016 and more. She loves drama and stories. Her dream is to see her graphic Novel/ comic adapted into a TV series one day. She wants to make this dream come true.
ARGEL MONTE DE RAMOS
Director
Argel Monte de Ramos is a Filipino-Canadian singer-songwriter, actor, playwright-producer, and director from Surrey, B.C. Canada. Argel is an advocate of anti-racism work and inclusion. He wants to use the power of storytelling to inspire youth through his music, theatrical performances, and administrative work. He firmly believes that the arts create significant impacts on the youth’s lives.
Argel co-founded the Momentum 180 Collective with Jocelyn Tsui and created The Parallel Project. This workshop program aims to create a collection of extended-original monologues written by emerging IBPOC (Indigenous, Black, and People of Colour) writers and performed by emerging IBPOC actors.
Select performance credits include Horton the Elephant in SEUSSICAL! The Musical (Align Entertainment), Manger/Ensemble in ELF: The Musical (Arts Club), Eddie in MAMMA MIA! (Theatre Under The Stars), and Nicely-Nicely Johnson in Guys and Dolls (Fighting Chance Productions). Argel would like to thank the team behind OR Festival, for providing him an opportunity to come back and direct a play this year.
Argel lives and works on the traditional, occupied, and stolen territories of Semiahmoo, Katzie, Kwikwetlem, Kwantlen, Qayqayt and Tsawwassen First Nations.
BOMAN MODINE
Director
Boman Modine is an emmy-nominated director and writer originally from New York City and has worked in Montreal, Los Angeles and the United Kingdom. Beginning his career with Liz Magic Laser’s live performances and working as a part of the Double Negative team for the Dark Knight Rises he then moved to LA where he received an on-set education by working in every department before transitioning into directing full time. His credits include episodes of Amazon’s Dark/Web with Julie Benz, Warhammer+’s Angels of Death, The Exodite with Clancey Brown, as well as the Hollyshort’s Merry Xmas with Dick Van Dyke.
NICKY ANDERTON
Director Dramaturg
This community, these artists and storytellers are about to blow your mind and it’s been an honour to be a small part of it!
Thank you for spending your time supporting live theatre! It means the world to us!
SHANE LEYDON
Director
Shane’s selected film and TV credits include: James Clayton’s BULLET PROOF, ALASKA DAILY, Kevan Funk’s HELLO DESTROYER and Jay Cardinal Villeneuve’s GOD’S AND DEVILS.
He directed Teresa Rebeck’s SEMINAR to critical acclaim and was a pick for “The Best of the Year” for theatre in Vancouver in 2019.
Shane is a graduate of The Writer’s Studio at Simon Fraser University where he also completed a program in restorative justice. He was also a member of VIFF’s Catalyst cohort in 2022.
Shane is a proud citizen of the Métis Nation of BC.
SARGIL TONGOL
Director
ANNIKA RAMBO
Director