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Die-Nasty
''Die-Nasty'' is a live improvised soap opera, running weekly in the city of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada since 1991. ''Die-Nastys improv comedy format features a continuing storyline and recurring characters, live music, and a director who sets up scenes for the audience (and performers) in voiceover. The current core cast of ''Die-Nasty'' features Delia Barnett, Belinda Cornish, Tom Edwards, Vincent Forcier, Jesse Gervais, Kristi Hansen, Jason Hardwick, Wayne Jones, Mark Meer, and Stephanie Wolfe. Previous cast members include Matt Alden, Dana Andersen, Shannon Blanchet, Leona Brausen, Peter Brown, Chris Craddock, Jeff Haslam, Kory Mathewson, Chantal Perron, Cathleen Rootsaert, Sheri Somerville, Davina Stewart and Donovan Workun. Notable former cast members include Josh Dean, Nathan Fillion, Ron Pederson and Patti Stiles. In the course of its thirty-season run, ''Die-Nasty'' has welcomed many prominent guest stars, including Joe Flaherty, Mump and Smoot, Robin Duke, Mark McKinn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dana Andersen
Dana Andersen is a Canadian actor, improvisor, filmmaker, writer and director. He has served as director of the live improvised soap opera Die-Nasty, and has been a core member of the troupe since its founding in 1991. From 1995-1999, he co-hosted The Johnny and Poki Variety Hour at Edmonton's Varscona Theatre. His theatre credits include shows with Teatro la Quindicina, Panties Productions, and Rapid Fire Theatre. Film credits for Andersen include Purple Gas, ''Turnbuckle!'', and ''Stray Dogs''. He has written, directed and produced a number of independent films, including ''Rio Loco'', ''Subplot'', ''Subplot II'' and ''Hearts of Plastic''. Other work In 2005, Andersen exported the Die-Nasty company's annual Soap-A-Thon to England, working with legendary British theatre artist Ken Campbell to produce a 36-hour-long soap opera in London. Several members of Campbell's company made the pilgrimage to Canada in 2006 and 2007 to take part in the original 53-hour-long event. In Janua ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Patti Stiles
Patti Stiles is an actress, director, author, playwright, teacher and improvisation artist living in Australia. Biography She received her training at Calgary, Alberta's Loose Moose Theatre under Keith Johnstone. It was there she worked with Keith Johnstone in many forms of improvisation. She performed regularly in Theatresports, Gorilla Theatre and Life Game as well as performing in Keith's plays, directing and performing in the Theatre for kids program and touring productions. Stiles moved to Toronto, and was the artistic director of Dream Kitchen Theatre, which produced Theatresports. She then moved to Edmonton and was artistic director of Rapid Fire Theatre from 1991 to 1996. She trained and directed company members such as Mark Meer, Josh Dean, Nathan Fillion, and Kevin Gillese. Her directing credits include ''The Maltese Bodkin'' which featured Nathan Fillion (in one of his first theatrical roles) receiving an Elizabeth Sterling Haynes Award for Outstanding Fringe P ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ron Pederson
Ronald Pederson (born January 8, 1978) is a Canadian ( Métis) actor, comedian and theatre director who has worked extensively throughout Canada and in the United States. He has performed with most of Canada's major theatres including The Stratford Festival, The Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, The Citadel Theatre, Alberta Theatre Projects, The Arts Club, The Vancouver Playhouse, The Young Centre, The Canadian Stage Company, The Tarragon Theatre, Theatre Passe Muraille, Soulpepper and The SummerWorks Festival. Pederson has also worked extensively in television and may be best known for his Canadian Comedy Award-Nominated work (Canadian Comedy Award Best Television Performance) and his three seasons on Fox Television's ''MADtv''. Career Born in Edmonton, Alberta, Pederson began working professionally at a very young age. He appeared at the Citadel Theatre, The Phoenix Theatre, playwright Stewart Lemoine's Teatro La Quindicina and the Edmonton International Fringe Festival. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mark Meer
Mark Meer is a Canadian actor, writer and improvisor, based in Edmonton, Alberta. He is known for his role in the ''Mass Effect'' trilogy, in which he stars as the voice of the player character, Commander Shepard. His voice is featured in a number of other games from BioWare Corp., notably the ''Baldur's Gate'' and ''Dragon Age'' series. Meer stars as the voice of the player character William Mackenzie in ''The Long Dark'' from Hinterland Studio. He also works in animation, providing the voice for several characters in a series of cartoon shorts produced by Rantdog Animation Studios, and the voice of Horse in the Captain Canuck web series starring Kris Holden-Ried and Tatiana Maslany. Career Meer starred as the male voice of the main player character, Commander Shepard, in the ''Mass Effect'' trilogy. His voice is featured in a number of other games from BioWare Corp., notably the ''Baldur's Gate'' and ''Dragon Age'' series. Meer starred as the voice of the player character Wi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paul Morgan Donald
Paul Morgan Donald is a Canadian musician, composer, and actor based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. He is the musical director of ''Die-Nasty'', Edmonton's long-running improvised soap opera. He has a long-running association with the River City Shakespeare Festival as both an actor and composer, and has worked at most of Edmonton's theatres including the Citadel Theatre. He has twice been honoured with the Elizabeth Sterling Haynes Award, as Director of the Edmonton International Fringe Festival production of ''Reefer Madness: the Musical'', and as co-composer (with Joey Trembley and Jonathan Christensen) of Catalyst Theatre's ''Songs for Sinners''. As a theatre composer, Paul's credits include over 20 original musicals, as well as contemporary scores for the Free Will Shakespeare Festival and original scores and sound designs for theatres across Western Canada. His musicals include ''Kink!'' a musical about 1950's pin-up icon Bettie Page, ''The Adventures of Wanda & Jack'', an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Old Strathcona
Old Strathcona is a historic district in south-central Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Once the commercial core of the separate city of Strathcona, the area is now home to many of Edmonton's arts and entertainment facilities, as well as a local shopping hub for residents and students at the nearby University of Alberta. The district centres on Whyte Avenue and has shops, restaurants, bars and buskers. Official definitions Provincial historic area In 2007, Old Strathcona was named Alberta's second Provincial Historic Area. The district comprises an area of five city blocks from 85 Avenue south to 80 Avenue and from 102 Street west to 106 street.Canada's Historic PlaceAlberta Register of Historic Places: Old Strathcona Online at: hermis.alberta.ca. Retrieved on: 2012-01-02. Business revitalization zone The Old Strathcona and Area Business Revitalization Zone (BRZ) is a roughly cross-shaped business revitalization zone, extending along Whyte Avenue from just west of 109 S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Varscona Theatre
The Varscona Theatre is a live performance venue in the Old Strathcona neighborhood of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Since 1994, the Varscona has been operated by a consortium of small theatre companies, including Teatro la Quindicina and Shadow Theatre (collectively known as The Varscona Theatre Alliance). The theatre is also the home of the nationally renowned live improvised soap opera Die-Nasty. In addition, the Varscona has hosted tapings of The Irrelevant Show, a national sketch comedy program aired on CBC Radio. The Varscona holds over 300 performances and has 30,000 audience members per year. It employs 100 local professional theatre artists. History The building was originally constructed as Edmonton's Fire Hall #6 in 1956, which replaced the original Fire Hall #6, built in 1909, across the street (the 1909 building has been home to The Walterdale Playhouse since 1974). Fire Station #6 was later relocated to 81 Avenue & 96 Street, and the building was repurposed as a theatre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stewart Lemoine
''Stewart Lemoine'' is a Canadian playwright, director, and producer. Lemoine was the Artistic Director of Teatro la Quindicina from 1982 to 2007. In 2008 he became Teatro's resident playwright, working on his own original comedies and mentoring the troupe's new writers at Old Strathcona's Varscona Theatre. Lemoine has written over seventy plays in the course of his career. He is the winner of 9 Sterling Awards for ''The Glittering Heart'' (1990), ''The Book of Tobit'' (1993), ''The Noon Witch'' (1995), ''Pith'' (1998)'', At the Zenith of the Empire'' (2006), The Oculist's Holiday (2009), Witness to a Conga (2010), ''Cause and Effect'' and ''Marvelous Pilgrims'' (2013), and A Lesson in Brio (2018). He received a Dora Mavor Moore Award for ''The Vile Governess and Other Psychodramas'' (1986). He won the New York International Fringe Festival The New York International Fringe Festival, or FringeNYC, was a fringe theater festival and one of the largest multi-arts events in North Am ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jan Randall
Jan Randall is a Canadian composer, singer songwriter and professional musician. He has had an extensive career composing sound tracks, performing original songs, and improvising music for comedy theatre. He currently plays regularly with his band Rhythm Train and teaches music history at the University of Victoria, He also releases original classical piano sheet music through his publishing company Vista Heights Music Singer Songwriter Jan's first solo concert was at Giuseppi's Pizza in January of 1972 at the age of 19 in Edmonton, Alberta. Posters of many concerts he gave at folk clubs like the Hovel, Barricade Coffee House, Room at the Top are available to view online at the Edmonton Public library archive. Across Canada, he performed at the Regina Folk Festivalin 1976 and around Toronto and Montreal after joining Second City Theatre in the early 1980's. In 1981 he joined the funk band Etcetera in Tampa Florida after meeting the guitarist Michael Marth who was playing a Ve ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edmonton International Fringe Festival
The Edmonton International Fringe Festival is an annual arts festival held every August in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Produced by the Fringe Theatre Adventures (FTA), it is the oldest and largest fringe theatre festival in North America (based on ticket sales). The Edmonton Fringe is a founding member of the Canadian Association of Fringe Festivals. In 2014, 118,280 tickets were sold, up from 117,000 in 2013. The 2014 event had over 210 shows and 1,600 performances, with an estimated outdoor site attendance of 665,750. In 2016, the attendance rate reached a record-breaking high of 850,000+ attendees. In 2017 there was a record-breaking 130,000 tickets sold and $1.2 million in box office sales during the festival, which held performances from over 1,500 artists in 220 shows. History In 1982, Chinook Theatre's artistic director Brian Paisley received $50,000 from Edmonton's Summerfest to put together "A Fringe Theatre Event" in Edmonton's Old Strathcona District. Inspired by the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nathan Fillion
Nathan Fillion (; born March 27, 1971) is a Canadian-American actor. He played the leading roles of Captain Malcolm "Mal" Reynolds on '' Firefly'' and its film continuation '' Serenity'', and Richard Castle on '' Castle''. , he was starring as John Nolan on '' The Rookie''. Fillion has acted in traditionally distributed films like '' Slither'' and ''Trucker'', Internet-distributed films like '' Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog'', television soap operas, sitcoms and theater. His voice is also featured in animation and video games, such as Hal Jordan/Green Lantern in various DC Comics projects, the Bungie games ''Halo 3'', '' Halo 3: ODST'', '' Halo: Reach'', ''Destiny'' and ''Destiny 2'', along with the 343 Industries game '' Halo 5: Guardians'', and Wonder Man in Marvel's '' Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2'' (2017) and '' M.O.D.O.K.'' (2021). Fillion first gained recognition for his work on '' One Life to Live'' in the contract role of Joey Buchanan, for which he was nominated for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Josh Dean (actor)
George Joshua Christian Dean (born December 3, 1979 in Burnaby, British Columbia) is a Canadian actor and improvisor. He was raised in Edmonton, Alberta, where he performed in the improvised soap opera ''Die-Nasty'' and toured with improv company Rapid Fire Theatre. Career Dean worked with the comedy troupe Gordon's Big Bald Head and appeared in several new works by Canadian playwright Stewart Lemoine. He was a regular cast member in the improvised variety show '' Oh Susanna!'' at the Varscona Theatre. Dean provided the voice of Henpecked Hou (among others) in the game ''Jade Empire'' from BioWare Corp. He later appeared in several roles in Bioware's ''Mass Effect''. In 2003, he co-starred in the independent film ''Purple Gas'', and in 2006 starred in the FOX TV sitcom '' Free Ride''. Dean stars in the Martin Gero film ''Young People Fucking'', and ''National Lampoon's Bag Boy ''National Lampoon's Bag Boy'' is a 2007 American comedy film directed by Mort Nathan, starring ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
