Renee Brode, Lighting Designer

Recent Design Credits: Intimate Apparel (Canadian Stage/Obsidian); Legends, Wizard of Oz, Dreamgirls, Wild Guys(Grand Theatre); Doubt, Half-Life (Theatre Aquarius); Anne of Green Gables (Charlottetown and Toronto); Disco Cirque, British Invasion, Canada Rocks I & II (Charlottetown), Cosi Fan Tutte, The Bear, Swoon(COC Ensemble), Cats – South American Tour (Troika Entertainment), Sistahs Concert (Andrew Craig, Producer)

Upcoming:  Buddy Holly Story (Charlottetown Festival), Intimate Apparel (Citadel Theatre)

Other:  Course Director at York University.  Member of ADC.

Thanks to Dave and Taryn and Miles for absolutely everything!

Katie is proud to have pursued a multi-faceted career in the performing arts. As a stage manager, Katie’s recent credits include Twelfth Night, The Secret Garden, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, The Taming of the Shrew, and Measure for Measure, and The Penelopiad, as well as Canadian premiere productions of The Shift, Continuum, and Adam’s Attic. She is currently a member of the production team at the Canadian Opera Company, where credits include La Bohème, The Nightingale and Other Short Fables, Otello, and The Flying Dutchman. Katie has also produced four highly successful cabaret benefits, raising thousands of dollars for Toronto-based charitable organizations. Performance highlights range from plays to musical theatre to opera to concert appearances throughout Toronto, including Roy Thompson Hall and Massey Hall, as well as in Hamilton, Uxbridge, Barrie, Oshawa, Cambridge, and Kingston, and on CBC Radio and 98.1 CHFI. Katie is a graduate of the Bachelor of Music programme at Queen’s University, Randolph Academy for the Performing Arts, and the Royal Conservatory of Music. Katie is thrilled to be a part of Wish Opera’s talented team.

A native of Toronto, Jessie has worked and trained extensively across the country in various aspects of theatre.  She has most recently directed We Never Clothed (Ottawa Fringe Festival, Best Fringe Production nomination 2009 Rideau Awards), Karius & Baktus (Theatre Bilingue de Montreal at Centaur Theatre) and Clearing Customs for the New Ideas Festival (Alumnae Theatre). Jessie has also directed students of opera at Wilfrid Laurier University as well as Youth Chorus members of the Canadian Children’s Opera Company. Other directing credits include three years at the Playwrights Festival for Theatre Aurora, Director’s Cut (Crosscurrents Festival), The Pharmaceutical Affair (Toronto Fringe), and four years of staging concerts for The Talisker Players. Jessie has assistant directed for mentors such as Ted Dykstra, Miles Potter and Marshall Pynkoski with numerous companies including Neptune Theatre, Opera Atelier, Pleiades Theatre and Dalhousie Theatre. Her training background includes a B.A. (Honours) in Theatre Studies from the University of King’s College, classical piano with Doreen Uren Simmons, workshops in Bouffon, Suzuki and Viewpoints as well as intensives with the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, Zuppa Theatre and Theatre de Complicité and Russian influenced physical training based on the traditions of Konstantin Stanislavski, Yevgeniy Vakhtangov and Vsevolod Meyerhold. This past fall Jessie performed in the critically acclaimed Nuit Blanche exhibit, The Apology Project, winner of The Scotiabank People’s Choice Award. Jessie is author of the play Moonmyth and is currently working towards a workshop production of her original musically inspired play The Ballad of George A. Chicken.