Spotlight Presents

Just checking in to let you know we will be away for a few weeks as we make our transition to the College of Piping

This week on Spotlight Presents we speak to Becca Griffin. Griffin is originally from Saint John, New Brunswick but moved to Prince Edward Island to study preforming arts at Holland College. Now as a professional actor she's preformed in dinner theaters, community theaters, and has done a few commercials. Last year she starred as Diana Barry in the production of Anne and Gilbert. In 2014 Griffin opened her own theater company, The Cat's Pajamas Theatre Co.

If you haven't listened to last weeks episode, this week won't make sense. Welcome to Part 2 of Steven Gallant's interview.

Part 1 of 2 part series: This week on Spotlight Presents host Reasha Walsh interviews her brother, Steven Gallant. Gallant is a musician and a graduate of Humber College.

This week on Spotlight Presents, host Reasha Walsh is interviewed by Spotlight School of Arts student Ryan Gallant.

Margaret Magner is a governor of the National Theatre School of Canada, a professor at the University of PEI and works with the PEI Business women’s association. She earned a doctoral degree in English from York University and a Masters from University of Southern California in professional writing, specializing in play writing and fiction.  On top of all that she’s an award winning play writer, actor and the founder and CEO of Magner Ink.

Andrea Surich has been the General Manager of Watermark Theatre in North Rustico since 2015. She has come to PEI for family reasons, after 11 years as the Production Manager at the Grand Theatre in London, Ontario. Previous to coming to London, Andrea is proud to have been the first female Technical Director at the Stratford Shakespearean Festival for five seasons. She has been working in professional theatre for over 30 years and is particularly passionate about mentoring young theatre artists in all theatre production disciplines. In the summer of 2016, Andrea spearheaded a Mentorship Project supported by Skills PEI that saw 16 interns placed in arts organizations across PEI.

This week we’re finishing our interview with David Grimes. If you haven’t heard last weeks episode go check out part 1 of the interview first; where Grimes talks about his first job in the industry and film school. This week he’ll be speaking about the progress he’s made over the last 10 years and what’s next for him.

This week on Spotlight Presents we have a special two part episode. We talk to David Grimes who has been free lance video producing since 2008. He got his start in the industry working as a production assistant on the set of the film, The Sentinel. He worked at CBC until 2012 as a production assistant and in the art department on a show called, 'Steven and Chris'. Following that he worked for Shaw TV as a promo producer. He's acted, produced and starred in his own productions, which have won awards such as best new feature in the Canadian Film Festival. Stay tuned for part 2 of the episode launching on Tuesday, April 2nd.

Over the span of her 32 year professional career, Jennifer has had the privilege of having stage managed over 147 live theatrical productions. Based out of Toronto, she has toured extensively, coast to coast in Canada, across the United States, to Dublin, Ireland, London, England, Sydney, and Perth Australia, and Edinburgh, Scotland. Jennifer originally studied performance, then turned to technical theatre, at York University. At that time there were only four students who comprised the fourth and final year of the Production Design Course. During that time she discovered the role of stage manager, and that of lighting designer, and started a walk on a path that has never been dull and although occasionally challenging, it is always rewarding and enriching.

Amanda Campbell, an independent theater critic based out of Halifax, has reviewed hundreds of shows from Broadway to performances in Prince Edward Island. This week on Spotlight Presents, Campbell describes her journey in the arts industry, transitioning from a play writing and acting career into her current position as a theater critic.

Doctoral candidate at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. For her dissertation, she created SExT: Sex Education by Theatre in 2014 to explore the use of theatre for sex education among newcomer youth in Toronto’s Thorncliffe and Flemingdon Park neighbourhoods.

Young Canadian Actor Aaron Hastelow has been portraying some pretty big rolls in Canadian Theatre including Jesus in the 2018 Charlottetown Festival production of Jesus Christ Superstar. Listen to Aaron's journey to this prestigious roll and other projects he has been working on.

Steve Bellamy just stepped into the roll of CEO of the Confederation Centre of the Arts coming from his position of Dean of Creative and Performing Arts at Humber College. Steve's career started in music and recording, and his albums have won 6 Juno Awards and many nominations. Hear Steve's thoughts on the importance of arts education and the roll of arts in your community.

Learn about who we are at Spotlight and about Executive Director Reasha Walsh who is also the founder and creator of Spotlight School of Arts Inc in PEI Canada. Spotlight Presents will bring conversations with arts professionals from all over the world to hear their stories and their journey and explore the wide world of the Arts.