Mandate:
A verb is an action word, that which connects a subject to its predicate. Verb Theatre achieves the same function. Three guiding principals dictate our mandate and programming:
Verb Theatre reaches out to capture the stories of a wide range of communities, lifestyles, experiences, and unheard voices.
Verb Theatre builds bridges, fostering partnerships with communities, associations, and charities that are not necessarily theatre-based in order to share their stories and nurture a new generation of theatre lovers.
Verb Theatre creates new works, including everything from performance creation pieces to fresh new scripts to innovative adaptations of old classics.
History:
Formed in 2008 by Artistic Director Jamie Dunsdon, Verb Theatre was joined by Artistic Associates Col Cseke and Jessica Robertshaw in the spring of 2009. Verb Theatre Society was incorporated as not-for-profit society on May 29, 2009. The Verb Theatre blog (The Digital Inkblot) was launched on January 1st, 2010. Col Cseke joined Jamie as Co-Artistic Director in August, 2010.
Our Team:
Jamie Dunsdon
Co-Artistic Director, Founder
Jamie is an active director, playwright, performer, and arts instructor in Calgary. She currently teaches for the University of Lethbridge, Evergreen Theatre, and Calgary Young People’s Theatre. For Verb Theatre, Jamie has directed Marg Szkaluba (Pissy’s Wife) by Ron Chambers, The Shape of a Girl by Joan Macleod and Bubble Boy: Slide Show by Col Cseke. Other selected directing credits include: Little Red Riding Beard And Other Rejected Fairy Tales (Wagonstage); Tree Hugger (Urban Curvz: Heroines); Raunch (Downstage: Motel Series); The Year of Falling Down and The Dirty Goddess (Sage Theatre: Ignite!); I Dream of Disney (Downstage: Birds and Stone); and Potentilla (UofC). Jamie completed her MFA in Directing at the University of Calgary where she directed the Albertan premiere of Karen Hines’ Hello…Hello in 2008. She also holds a BFA in performance from the University of Lethbridge where she directed Colleen Wagner’s The Monument and Edward Albee’s The Zoo Story.
Col Cseke
Co-Artistic Director
Col is a Calgary based creator and performer. He is Co-Artistic Director of Verb Theatre, a founding member and active artist with the This Is My City Art Society, and a member of the Downstage Creation Ensemble. Selected credits include In the Wake, Bus(t), Arm’s Length Embrace (Downstage), Oedipus Evolving, Bubble Boy: Slide Show, and The Opposite of Dismal (Verb Theatre), Transit UnRomatic (ATP), Love’s Labour’s Lost (The Shakespeare Company), Wanderlust and Freak Show (Swallow-A-Bicycle). Selected writing credits include The Ex-Pats (Lunchbox Theatre’s Stage One festival), I Dream of Disney, and the short film Obituary Now. This season Col will premiere new performance-creation works in OYR’s High Performance Rodeo (with This Is My City), ATP’s playRites Festival (with the Downstage Creation Ensemble), and at The Calgary International Children’s Festival (with Verb Theatre) and as a playwright he will premiere Jim Forgetting with Verb Theatre and write the libretto for Calgary Opera’s Let’s Make an Opera program. He is also the assistant to the curator for One Yellow Rabbit’s High Performance Rodeo and sits on the Board of Directors of the Calgary Arts Development Authority. Col shares a Betty Mitchell award, and an additional nomination, for Best New Play with his collaborators in the Downstage Creation Ensemble.
Board of Directors
Christopher Scout, President
Patrick Finn, Vice President
Corey van der Laan, Secretary
Lara Schmitz, Treasurer
Roland Hung, Director
Jessica Robertshaw, Director