Jessica Beaulieu
Artistic Director and Co-Founder

Jessica is a recent graduate of the University of Toronto where she specialized in Theatre and Cinema Studies and spent a lot of time questioning the meaning of life. She is the Artistic Director of The Pheasant Plucker’s Mates Theatre Company, as well as a founding member. She performs weekly improv shows with the Vanguard Comedy Theatre team THE SEQUELS, and she has had extensive training in improvisational comedy and sketch writing with the Impatient Theatre Co. and Second City. Jessica is primarily a theatre director; however she also loves delving into the wonderful worlds of playwriting and producing. One day, she will make an Oscar winning film, create her own television show, win a coveted Tony Award, and shake Jack Nicholson’s hand.

Selected Credits: For The Pheasant Plucker’s Mates:
Politically Correct Bedtime Stories (Director, Playwright, Producer – Tarragon Theatre – Patron’s Pick and Best of the Toronto Fringe Festival 2009)
The Anger in Ernest and Ernestine (Ernestine/Producer – The Bread and Circus)
Conjoined Skins (Performer/Co-director/Producer – Nuit Blanche 2007)
The King Stag (Director/Producer – Palmerston Library Theatre – Luminato Festival 2007).

For the University College Drama Program:
A Dream Play (Stage Manager - Director Alisa Palmer)
Aria da Capo (Lighting Designer)
Orestes (Apollo)
Adult Entertainment (Pam)
The Servant of Two Masters (Silvio – Nuit Blanche 2006).

Other credits:
High Fidelity (Assistant Director – Hart House Theatre – Director Mark Selby)
ENVIA! (Director – New Ideas Festival – Alumnae Theatre)

Scott Christian
Musical Director, Producer

Scott is a graduate of the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music (2008) for piano and composition. Composer Scott Christian has developed two new musical theatre works, Our Meltdown with New York writer Zachary Campbell and Hero & Leander with Toronto based writer-director Kevin Shea and lyricist Wade Bogert-O’Brien; both to be mounted in 2011.

He composed and performed the music for The Pheasant Plucker’s Mates' Politically Correct Bedtime Stories, winner of 2009’s Best of Fringe, and has composed many musical works for short films, animation and ensembles.

Scott has been working in various aspects of musical theatre in Toronto and the GTA for almost ten years. At only 17, Scott won a THEA award (best ensemble) for his role as the pianist in Norm Foster and Leslie Arden’s The Last Resort. Most recently, Scott musical directed Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins for UC Follies at Hart House (2010) and was Musical Director of the Toronto debut of Altar Boyz (2009) at the Toronto Centre for the Performing Arts. Scott has worked with Ecce Homo Theatre and Alistair Newton on both his 2009 remount of The Pastor Phelps Project at the University of Toronto as well as The Ecstasy of Mother Teresa or Agnes Bojaxhiu Superstar at the Canstage Ideas and Creation Festival (2009). Scott was the musical director for the 2009 production of Jewish Radio Hour produced by actor/writer/director Theresa Tova. He is a sought after accompanist for many vocalists in the city and is the musical director at Toronto’s St. David’s Anglican Church.

Scott has also been a member of a number of Indie bands throughout the years as songwriter, keyboard player and bassist. (Jim Smith Band, Rob Christian Combo, Birds of Wales, William the Conqueror)

Marcel Dragonieri
Associate Artist

Marcel Dragonieri is an actor, writer and performance graduate of the University College Drama Program where he worked with renowned director Johanna Schall on both Frederich Schiller's The Robbers (UCDP) and I (Heart) Future, a collaborative piece that was performed at the Piccolo di Teatro in Milan, Italy. In 2009 he performed in the Fringe play Politically Correct Bedtime Stories, which was awarded Tarragon’s Patron’s Pick as well as a “Best of the Festival” performance spot at Canstage’s Berkeley Street Theatre.

Within the last two years he has toured extensively across Ontario with Metaphysical Theatre’s Fool’s Gold, a play that introduces high school audiences to the form and style of the Commedia Dell’arte. He is also a performer and teacher with the Zanni Arte Company that strives to create, teach and promote masked theatre in all its various forms. When he’s not busy performing Marcel is hard at work re-adapting his own version of Carlo Collodi’s Pinocchio for the stage.

For the Pheasant Plucker’s Mates: The Narrator in Politically Correct Bedtime Stories, Ernest in The Anger in Ernest & Ernestine, Tartaglia in The King Stag.

Selected credits: Leilio/Truffaldino in Fool’s Gold (Metaphysical Theatre (2009, 2010 tours), Oronte in Les Misanthrope (The Red Light District/Mirvish Productions), Methusalem in Methusalem or the Eternal Bourgeois (The Red Light District), Florindo in Servant of Two Masters--Abridged (Nuit Blanche ‘06), Dog/Waiter in Mad Forest (Hart House Theatre), Count von Moor in The Robbers, Cothurnus in Aria di Capo, Methusalem in Methusalem or The Eternal Bourgeois, Capitano Velocita in I (Heart) Future, In BOB We Trust (writer/director/actor).

Festivals/Events: The King Stag (Luminato Festival 2007), Room of Desire (Nuit Blanche 2007), Carnival: The Spirit and the Soul Art Exhibition (2008), D.A.R.E Arts Awards Fundraiser (2010).

Upcoming: Woyzeck (The Red Light District), Apocalypse Later for the Fringe 2010 (co-writer/actor) The Witch of Edmonton for SummerWorks, 2010 (The Red Light District).

Tim Lindsay
Resident Sound Designer

Tim Lindsay was born in Toronto and raised on Bloor Street, graduating from UTS and Trinity College at U of T, taking piano lessons at the Royal Conservatory of Music and temporarily escaping to Boston's Berklee College of Music to study engineering and production. Last year he completed a professional sound design internship, working on West Side Story, Julius Caesar and Bartholomew Fair (with composer Steven Page) at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival under resident sound designer Peter McBoyle. This year he served as the assistant house technician at the prestigious Blyth Festival.

Other theatre credits include: Sound designer, ENVIA!, Politically Correct Bedtime Stories (The Pheasant Plucker's Mates), Just East of Broadway (Gig Productions), Headbangers, Dirty Girls (Knockabout Theatre), Witch Hazel, The Last Lighthouse (Theatre Recap), Trainspotting, The Tempest, The Importance of Being Earnest, Macbeth (Trinity College Drama Society), Sparks in the Park (UTS Drama); director and sound designer, Talk Radio (TCDS); stage manager, Peter Pan's Fairy Tale Castle (Casa Loma); director and producer, The Good Detective (Shafted); Rosencrantz in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (TCDS), Chorus in HMS Pinafore (GAB Middle School).

Natasha McEwen
Producer

Natasha has worked on many sides of the proverbial curtain for over 10 years. She can currently be found kicking around Toronto with her dog Bert, working in arts marketing and administration for various for-profit and not-for-profit theatre companies. She is thrilled to be a Pheasant Plucker and looks forward to many fantastic projects with the Mates!

Catherine Owen
Technical Director & Stage Manager, Producer

Catherine is a graduate in theatre production from the University of Toronto’s University College Drama Program. Previous stage management credits include: Debbie Does Dallas: The Musical (Ghost Light Projects); Gozzi’s King Stag, The Anger in Ernest and Ernestine by Leah Cherniak, Robert Morgan and Martha Ross, and the 2009 Toronto Fringe hit Politically Correct Bedtime Stories (The Pheasant Plucker’s Mates); WOYZECK and Les Misanthrope directed by Johanna Schall, Ivona Princess of Burgundia and Titus Andronicus (The Red Light District); Witch Hazel and The Last Lighthouse (Theatre Recap); and Islet Productions’ How Sweet It Is.

Gwynne Phillips
Associate Artist & Co-founder

Gwynne Phillips is a recent graduate of the University College Drama Program at the University of Toronto. Gwynne’s acting credits include; Emily in Thaiing the Knot (Beacon Theatre Company), Various in Politically Correct Bedtime Stories (The Pheasant Plucker’s Mates), two years of sketch comedy in THE BOB (Victoria College), I (Heart) Future (Johanna Schall), The Blue Hour (UCDP), Girl # 2 in Conjoined Skins (Nuit Blanche 2007 installment), Narrator in Carnation Lily, Lily, Rose (Hugh Brewster), Smeraldina, Pantaloon, and Cigolotti in The King Stag (The Pheasant Plucker’s Mates), and Columbina in Aria Da Capo (UCDP).

Gwynne made her directorial debut in 2007 with the Pheasant Plucker’s Mate’s second production, The Anger in Ernest and Ernestine.

Gwynne was a member of the Theatre Orangeville Youth Singers for five years, and has had two years of vocal training with world renowned tenor Mark DuBois.

Technical credits include two years of set design and stage management at the Les Azuriales Opera Festival in Nice, France and sound technician of Alisa Palmer’s production of A Dream Play.

Briana Templeton
Associate Artist & Co-founder

Briana Templeton is an actor currently residing in Toronto, Canada. She was featured as a performer in both Politically Correct Bedtime Stories and The King Stag - both produced by the Pheasant Plucker's Mates.

Some of her other theatrical credits include roles in: Mamma's Boy (Ghostlight Projects), ENVIA! (New Ideas Festival), Ivona; Princess of Burgundia (The Red Light District), I (Heart) Future (Il Piccolo Teatro di Milano), Guantanamo Bay Hotels & Resorts (Pandemic Theatre), Methusalem or the Eternal Bourgeois (The Red Light District).

She also performs regularly with improv team "Blind Date Champion" and is a writer and performer with the sketch comedy group "Rulers of the Universe".