1999 (11th Annual) Playwriting Competition winners' bios & photos


1999 Winners Photos & Bios (11th Annual) Jamie Norris / Denise Blinn & Gabrielle Kemeny / Lucas Foss
1999 Winner - Full Length Jamie Norris	Jamie Norris Jamie is a theatre artist living in Vancouver. As an actor he has worked with most Vancouver theatre companies, and toured throughout Western Canada. Most recently he appeared as Slim in the Vancouver Playhouse production of "Of Mice and Men". Jamie served as Artistic Director of Theatre Terrific, during which time the company produced its first mainstage production, "Breeding Doubts" by Sandra Ferrons, and toured Lyle Victor Albert's "Scraping The Surface" across the country and to the Edinburgh Festival in Ireland. Other directing highlights include "Chili Con Carne" by Cormen Aguirre, which represented Canada at the Festival of the Americas in Barcelona, Venezuela, and creating, designing and directing "The Stationstreet Art Centre Kid Series" - episodic theatre for young audiences based on classic fairytales, starring Gina Bastonie. Jamie has written three plays for young audiences: "Showdown", "Give 'N' Take", and most recently "Leaps And Bounds" which won three Jessie Richardson Theatre Awards for outstanding production, design and script. He's been twice nominated for the Sydney Riske award for outstanding script by an emerging playwright, and was runner up in the twenty four hour playwriting competition put on by the Playwrights Theatre Centre (formerly New Play Centre). Currently he is writing a screenplay based on "Leaps And Bounds", writing a new play for Theatre Terrific and acting for Tome Cone's new play "Love Lies Bleeding". Jamie would like to acknowledge and thank Ms. Pat Armstrong for her continued inspirational support of his play, "November".

1999 Winner - One Act (Co-Written) Denise Blinn & Gabrielle Kemeny	Denise Blinn Denise Blinn is a filmmaker, writer and director. Since graduating from the film program at Ryerson Polytechnical University in 1997, she has worked in both theatre and film. Her trilogy of short films entitled "Sonata" appeared at festivals across Canada and was aired by CBC's Canadian Reflections. In 1997, she directed and dramaturged "Don Juan Etcetera..." at the Summerworks Festival in Toronto to much critical acclaim. Her written work (including poetry) has appeared in such publications as Prairie Fire, Our Times Magazine, Hansard, Minus Tides, Island Life and the Gulf Islands' Guardian. She is presently at work on her first feature film - "The Living End". Gabrielle Kemeny Born in Montreal, Gabrielle is a graduate of McGill University and Ryerson Theatre School. She is a writer, actor, and director in English, French and Spanish. For three years she reviewed French Theatre for Montreal’s CKUT Radio. She has written several plays including Lament of Saint Catherine performed in Toronto’s Summerworks Festival `98, and Don Juan…Etcetera performed at the Centaur Theatre in Montreal, at Summerworks, and at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre. She has written six children’s plays which were all performed by a young company of international students at Lakefield College School. As an actor, Gabrielle’s film credits include Meg in Sonata (CBC TV), and Catherine in Rebels (Joe de Vivre Productions), and Eva in Water and Wine, an independent film shot in Hungary. Gabrielle’s original works have been performed in Toronto and Montreal. Her plays have won awards in the Centaur Theatre Young Directors’ Competition and at the Montreal Playwright’s Workshop Festival. Her monologue Lament of Saint Catherine has been published as the first place winner of the Playwright’s Union of Canada’s International Monologue Competition. She is also the recipient of the Toronto Theatre Workshop’s George Luscombe Award. Favorite directing credits include Ghostsongs and Offstage and Out of the Woodwork (original multimedia pieces), Le medecin malgré lui (Molière), The Lesson (Ionesco), and Blood Relations (S. Pollock). Gabrielle is the founder and artistic director of Theatre sans pretexte : a bilingual theatre company that focuses on cross-cultural and multilingual and has performed in Toronto, Montreal and has toured the Eastern Townships of Quebec since 1990.

1999 Winner - Special Merit Lucas Foss	Lucas Foss Lucas is best known in the Vancouver area for his acting accomplishments which include roles in the United Players' productions of "Uncle Vanya" and "Lysistrata", the role of "Sir" in "The Dresser" for the White Rock Players and "Bob" in Sumac Studios' production of "Conversations". Of special pride is his on-going production of the one-man show "Fever" by Wallace Shawn, a play he first performed in August 1997 for the Metropolitan Theatre in Spokane and which he has taken to the Simon Fraser University Theatre, the Capilano College Studio and the Vancouver Fringe Festival, all to rave reviews. Lucas has had extensive training in acting for stage, television and film. He is also a talented blues singer and creative writer. In addition to his play "Little Voices", Lucas has adapted "We've Had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy and The World's Getting Worse" for the stage, based on the book by James Hilman and Michael Ventura and which Inner Space Theatre Company is developing. Lucas is also a registered clinical counselor in private practice and is on the faculty at Capilano College where he provides services to students with disabilities.

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