Confessions of a Reluctant Caregiver

Merri Biechler

Playwright

Merri is the Assistant Director of the School of Dance, Film, and Theater. She’s a playwright, actor, educator, and the Managing Director of Brick Monkey Theater Ensemble, a professional theater company located in Southeast Ohio. She is the recipient of a 2014 Boomerang Fund for Artists award. Her play Tammy Faye’s Final Audition was part of the inaugural season on Tantrum Theater. Her plays have been produced, workshopped, and read at Centenary Stage Company, Mortar Theatre Company, Foundry Theatre Works (Los Angeles), Artist’s Laboratory Theatre, and Victory Gardens Theater, among others. Her plays have received awards and placed in numerous competitions, including the Centenary Stage Company Women Playwrights Series winner; Stavis Award nominee; David Mark Cohen Award finalist; P73 Playwriting Fellowship semifinalist (twice); Clubbed Thumb biennial commission finalist; Princess Grace Award finalist; Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Competition finalist; WordBRIDGE Playwrights Laboratory participant (three years); Seven Devils Playwrights Conference semifinalist; and Perishable Theatre’s International Women’s Playwriting Festival finalist. She wrote movies-of-the-week for ABC Television and received her MFA in playwriting from Ohio University. As an actor, she studied with Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse and at his home on the island of Bequia, West Indies. She spent 18 months with the original Off-Broadway cast of Tony ‘n Tina’s Wedding, appeared in the films He Said, She Said; The Thing Called Love; and Pieces of April; and guest-starred on episodes of Judging Amy, E.R., and Murphy Brown. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild, Actors Equity Association, SAG/AFTRA, and is proud to call Athens County her artistic home.

Trevor Schmidt

Director, Set & Costumes

Trevor is the Artistic Director of Northern Light Theatre as well as a performer, designer of set and costume, a published playwright and a multiple award winner. He has been awarded twice for playwrighting (THE WATERMELON GIRLS, and CHANGE ROOM),for directing the Canadian premieres of Carol Anne Duffy’s THE WORLD’S WIFE and Sean Graney’s THE 4TH GRADERS PRESENT AN UNNAMED LOVE-SUICIDE and the outstanding production award for the Canadian premiere of Elise Forier Edie’s THE PINK UNICORN. For Guys In Disguise, where he is an Artistic Associate, he has also performed the one-man show COFFEE DAD, CHICKEN MOM, AND THE FABULOUS BUDDHA BOI, penned by Nick Green in New York as part of the FRIGID FESTIVAL for which he also received the award for Outstanding Performance, and the Outstanding New Fringe Play (co-written and created with Darrin Hagen) for FLORA & FAWNA’S FIELD TRIP (both at the Sterling Awards), and Outstanding Touring Production at the Critic’s Awards in Calgary. Also for Guys In Disguise, he received an Orlando Fringe award for his performance for Bette Davis in the much-lauded BITCHSLAP.

Cheryl Jameson

Mae (Daughter)

Cheryl has worked with Trevor in many other productions, such as 2 Queens and a Joker (Guys In Disguise), Her Mark, Marked, World’s Wife, Destination Wedding, Destination Vegas (Sterling Nominated), Lady Porn, Black Widow Gun Club (Sterling Nominated), Paloma & Joy (Whizgiggling Productions), Confessions of a Reluctant Caregiver (closed due to covid) and 4th Graders Present: An Un-Named Love-Suicide (NLT), where she was a Sterling Award recipient. Some favourite local productions include 9 to 5 (Citadel Theatre), Cabaret, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Rock and Roll Era (Mayfield Dinner Theatre), Hey! Countess (Teatro La Qundicina), The Prom (Nuova Vocal Arts) and her own The Best Little Newfoundland Christmas Pageant…Ever! (Whizgiggling Productions). Cheryl would like to thank her backstage crew; Justin, Taj and Trin!

Davina Stewart

Peggy (Mother) & Others

Davina (she/her), is an award winning actress, improviser, director and graduate of the U of A BFA Acting program. She’s been fortunate to have worked with many of Edmonton’s theatre companies selected credits include; Sexy Laundry, Deathtrap (Mayfield Dinner Theatre) Cottagers and Indians, Vanya, Sonia, Mash and Spike (Shadow Theatre); Something Unspoken, (Northern Light Theatre); Pia & Maria (Concrete Theatre); Witch Hunt At The Strand (Workshop West Theatre) Cocktails At Pam’s, Pith, The Vile Governess (Teatro Quindicina); Marion Bridge, A Beautiful View (Theatre Network); BitchSlap! (Guys In Disguise); An Ideal Husband (Citadel Theatre).

Most recently she directed The Hunchback Variations, All In The Timing- Sure Thing, Salsa Lesson (Edmonton Fringe), Prettier Woman (Spotlight) and appeared in; It’s A Wonderful Christmas Carol (Spotlight) Woman Caught Unaware (Edmonton Fringe & Victoria Fringe).

Davina is one third of the hit info-tainment extravaganza Hey Ladies! which will be returning to live in person performances in 2022/23 find out more at Hey Ladies! on Facebook.

Brian Dooley

Al (Father) & Others

Brian is an award winning actor and producer.  During the last 35 years  Brian has worked throughout the country and abroad in a variety of media. Trained and educated at the National Theatre School and Bishop’s University, his past performances  for Northern Light Theatre include:  Mercy of a Storm,  Do This in Memory of Me,  The Passion of Narcisse Mondoux and Flora and Fauna.   Brian recently  relocated to Montreal but continues to hold  Edmonton and its community close at heart. He draws inspiration form Victor Banda’s fervent  message: “The theatre moves, illuminates, disquiets, disturbs, lifts the spirit, reveals, provokes and violates conventions. It is a conversation shared with society. Theatre is the first art to confront emptiness, shadows and silence to make words, movement, lights and life surge forth.”

Dave Clarke

Music Direction and Sound Design

Dave is a musician, actor and writer. He has composed music and produced sound designs for theatre, film, dance and multi-media for three decades. Watch out for the 2024 Western Canadian tour of his family musical performed in spoken English and American Sign Language, SONGS MY MOTHER NEVER SUNG ME (Concrete Theatre).

Previous designs for Northern Light Theatre include ENOUGH, THE CARDIAC SHADOW, WISH, SPACE/SPACE, THE ECSTATICS and 6.0 – HEAP AND PEBBLE. Other recent designs include AFTER FAUST (Invisible Practice), DEAFY, THE ROYALE (Citadel Theatre), and ALL THE LITTLE ANIMALS I HAVE EATEN (Shadow Theatre).

Roy Jackson

Lighting

Roy is a Sterling Award Winning Lighting Designer (A Dybbuk for Two People – NLT) and owner of Roy Jackson Design. He has been lighting up bands, churches, schools and theatres for the past four decades. Recently he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Walterdale Theatre where he was Technical Director and Lighting Designer for many years. Roy is delighted to be working with Trevor and NLT again.

Nyssa Beairsto

Stage Manager

Nyssa is thrilled to return to Northern Light Theatre to stage manage TWO HEADED/ HALF HEARTED. Nyssa has previously stage managed for NLT with ⁠Something Unspoken and Confessions of a Reluctant Caregiver.

Nyssa is an Edmonton based stage manager and graduate of the Technical Theatre program at the University of Alberta. Some of her recent stage-management credits include: JANE EYRE (Citadel Theatre), THE MOUNTAINTOP (Shadow Theatre) HERE THERE BE NIGHT (WWPT), MR. BURNS (You are Here & Blarney Prod.) and THE INVISIBLE – Agents of Ungentlemanly Warfare (Catalyst).

Huge praise to Nyssa’s friends and her partner Kia for their endless support and sanity when it was in short supply.

Chris Hicks

Production Manager

Christopher Hicks – But mostly known as Hicks since there is a saturation of Chris’s in the world – is a seasoned theatre and festival production creator. He has worked with magnitudes of major festivals in Edmonton and beyond, from dinosaur building and electronic music, to downhill canoe racing on snow. Graduating from the MacEwan Theatre Production program 10+ years ago, Hicks is still making art happen and enjoys it!

Like many still giving it out here, Chris has been successfully navigating the feast or famine, zero to sixty entertainment climate that has been the last 3 years. Avoiding burnout and learning all the intricacies of live streaming theatre, along with the reality of more multimedia shows in general, he has been quite proud of some of the recent achievements!

Hicks is stoked to be joining Northern Light Theatre for a return to full season action. This will be his 4th season in a row with NLT. He is once again pleased to be transforming the space into a powerful show you will be enjoying this time around.

However… Who wants to run away to the mountains with me?!

Ruth DyckFehderau

Salon Facilitator

Ruth DyckFehderau (pronounced Dyke-FAY-der-ow) writes fiction and nonfiction, and teaches Creative Writing and English Lit at University of Alberta. Her shorter pieces have appeared in literary journals and anthologies; her book The Sweet Bloods of Eeyou Istchee: Stories of Diabetes and the James Bay Cree (2017 CBHSSJB, distrib WLUP), written with James Bay Cree storytellers, is being translated into five languages; and I (Athena), a novel, is forthcoming in 2023 (NeWest). Currently, Ruth is working on another commission for the James Bay Cree: Finding Our Way Home: Residential School Recovery Stories of the James Bay Cree (Vol One forthcoming 2022, CBHSSJB, distrib WLUP). She has published and spoken in venues around the world and has won many literary awards.