NICOLA HARWOOD - Director / Co-Writer / Script Editor

Nicola Harwood was born and raised in the Interior of British Columbia where she learned to holler loud and hold on tight. She holds an MFA in creative writing and is the recipient of several awards including three Canada Council grants, several playwriting awards, a Theatre Bay Area grant, and residencies at the Banff Centre and for the California Arts Council. Her passions include creator-driven works and community based arts practice. She has taught for major theatres in the Bay Area including the San Francisco Mime Troupe, the Magic Theatre and the East Bay Centre for the Performing Arts. As well, she has taught writing at San Francisco State University, UVic and Selkirk College. She is currently working on Letters From Lithuania, a site-specific play for Mortal Coil of Vancouver; BOOM! A site-specific installation project in Nelson, BC; Loco Phantasmo, a collective play about madness, and Dog Heart, a memoir about bad children. She is director of the Oxygen Art Centre in Nelson, B.C.

BESSIE WAPP - Actor / Co-Writer

Bessie Wapp is a two-time Jessie nominated theatre artist & musician. A Co-Director of stilt-dance theatre company Mortal Coil since 1993, Bessie has created, performed & directed shows for audiences of all ages across Canada, USA, and Europe. Since 1995 Bessie has also performed and recorded with Eastern European music ensemble Zeellia. Bessie's July '06 residency at Oxygen Art Centre (Nelson) resulted in "Hello, I Must Be Going," a solo theatre show about 5 generations of women in Bessie's Lithuanian Jewish family. The success of "Hello" prompted Bessie & director/writer Nicola Harwood to form a new company, "Twin Fish," whose next work, "Loco Phantasmo", will open in Nelson in June '08. In August '08 Zeellia and Mortal Coil will appear in the premiere of "Letters From Lithuania", a site-specific show about the discovery of unopened letters from Bessie's only Holocaust surviving relations. Other groups Bessie has worked with: The Only Animal, The Electric Company, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Gamelan Madu Sari, Songbird Project, Caravan Theatre, Touchstone, Radix, Ruby Slippers, Vancouver Moving Theatre, Public Dreams, The Capitol Theatre and Nelson History Theatre.

ADRIANA BOGAARD - Lighting Designer / Stage Manager

Adriana Bogaard is a third year Drama major at the University of British Columbia. When not in Vancouver, Adriana is based out of the BC interior where she has contributed to   productions of The Rocky Horror Picture Show (NHT), Proof (TNT), Scaramouche Jones (The Livingroom Theatre), and The Santaland Diaries (Barebones Theatre). Her first original work, Tramp: A Theatrical Tribute to the Work of Charlie Chaplin, opened in Nelson this summer.

JUDY WAPP - Co-Writer / Music & Yiddish Language Researcher

Judy Wapp was born in the US and immigrated to Toronto in 1968, and to The Kootenays in '71. She has work/played as a visual artist most of her life. A writing course with Tom Wayman in 1991 widened her creative path to include the written word and she's been agonizing over words in various literary forms since then.   "The collaborative birthing of 'Hello, I Must Be Going' represents an artistic high point for me. Working with Bessie and Nicola was exhilarating and exhausting. I loved every minute," sez Judy