The Drawer Boy
by Michael Healey
A Canadian classic
January 17 — February 4, 2024
A Canadian classic!
A young actor from the big city stays with two farmers to gather stories about rural life for a play he is working on. The farmers’ lives are irrevocably altered when art attempts to imitate life and the line between truth and fiction cross.
Hilarious, surprising, and infinitely moving.
Winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award (1999).
CAST & CREW
Reed McColm
Actor


Reed McColm
Actor
Reed has enjoyed a long career as a writer of stage, film and television projects. After earning a Master’s Degree in Professional Writing from the University of Southern California, McColm honed his skills in nearly every medium. For television, he worked for series Star Trek: The Next Generation, Growing Pains, The New WKRP in Cincinnati, Wings, Sister Kate, Dear John, Just the Ten of Us and others, including unsold pilots and several made-for-television movies (such as Cab to Canada, starring Maureen O’Hara). He was awarded a Golden CINE and a daytime Emmy award (Corporate, Instructional) for scripting an Afterschool Special called Set Straight on Bullies. An award-winning playwright, McColm has seen twelve of his plays produced to date, including his latest, The Wrong People Have Money, which will make its premiere at Shadow Theatre in Edmonton in April 2020. Other works include the 9/11 drama Hole in the Sky, biographical play Permit Me Voyage (about early 20th century poet Hart Crane), comedies Holding Patterns and The Mediation. His domestic comedy Together Again for the First Time has enjoyed more than forty separate productions, and McColm himself produced and co-authored the 2008 screen adaptation, starring Julia Duffy and David Ogden Stiers. Two years later, McColm wrote and directed a warm-hearted sequel, Together Again for the Next Time.
Adopted by anonymous
Glenn Nelson
Actor


Glenn Nelson
Actor
Bio coming soon!
Paul-Ford Manguelle
Actor


Paul-Ford Manguelle
Actor
Paul-ford Manguelle is a canadian French and English speaking actor of cameroonian origin.
His most notable theatre credit includes his performance as the blue, hip gyrating, and jovial
cat Panthro in The Grindstone Theatre’s Musical adaptation ThunderCats in the 2019 and
2022 Edmonton fringe festival, he has also most recently played multiple characters such as
Theo the vault the breaker, officer Al Winslow, Argyle the rapping limo driver, and Mary the
African secretary in The Grindstone Theatre’s 2022 Christmas adaptation called Die Harsh.
Paul-Ford is also a local filmmaker, Writer, producer, and director.
John Hudson
Director


John Hudson
Director
John is the founder and Artistic Director of Shadow Theatre. As a director he has over 110 productions to his credit including: The Wrong People Have Money, Bloomsday, Cottagers and Indians, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, The Comedy Company, Fly Me To The Moon, Outside Mullingar, Slumberland Motel, The Best Brothers, ‘ART’ & Annapurna (Shadow Theatre), Henry and Alice Into the Wild, The Odd Couple (The Mayfield Dinner Theatre), Gidion’s Knot (Pick of the Fringe, Edmonton Journal, Vue Weekly), A Picasso (Sterling Award: Outstanding Fringe Production and Outstanding Fringe Director, (Critics Award Outstanding Fringe Production 2013), The Unseen (Critics Award Outstanding Fringe Production 2011). Other favourites include Grace (Sterling Nomination: Outstanding Director and Outstanding Production) and Three Days of Rain (Sterling Nomination: Outstanding Director and Outstanding Production). He also directed the Canadian premieres of: Mistakes Were Made, The Pavilion, Speaking in Tongues, Honour and The Beginning of August, and the world premieres of The Wrong People Have Money, The Comedy Company, Miss Teen, Little Elephants, The Science of Disconnection, and The Liars. One of his passions is working as a dramaturge and he has helped nurture many new plays to production. In 2016 he was inducted into the City of Edmonton’s Salute to Excellence Hall of Fame, for Arts and Culture, and has twice been nominated for the Mayor’s Arts Awards for Outstanding Artistic Direction.
Lana Hughes
Assistant Director


Lana Hughes
Assistant Director
Lana is a director, actor, playwright, sound designer and producer based in Edmonton. This season she joins the Shadow Theatre team as the 2023/24 Artistic Director Fellow – a program she developed alongside the organization. Her work as an actor, director, and playwright has been seen throughout Western Canada. Acting highlights include: Winnie Gertske, Champion Off-Ice (SKAMpede), Loud & Queer Cabaret (Guys in Disguise), The Anxiety Project and The National Elevator Project (Theatre YES), Birdie On The Wrong Bus and The Fairy Catcher’s Companion (Promise Productions), Love(her)/Fight(her) (Urban Curvz), and The Laramie Project (Citadel Theatre). Selected directing credits include: Nightshrine (Workshop West), Jack & The Beanstalk (Alberta Musical Theatre Company), The Remarkably True, Real Life Adventures of Callie Montgomery (Promise Productions/Skirts of Fire Festival), Encounters (Citadel Theatre), Bust ‘Em Up Burlesque (Send in the Girls Burlesque/Citadel Theatre), A Bronte Burlesque (Send In the Girls Burlesque/Theatre Network), and Tudor Queens: A Burlesque (Send In The Girls Burlesque). Though currently on a creative sabbatical, she is usually at the helm of Catalyst Theatre, where she has been the Managing Director for the past 6 years.
Daniel vanHeyst
Set & Lights


Daniel vanHeyst
Set & Lights
Daniel vanHeyst has designed hundreds of professional, educational, and community theatre productions. He is honoured to be designing for Shadow Theatre; most recently creating set and lights for Conni Massing’s Fresh Hell this past winter, Drew Hayden Taylor’s Cottagers and Indians the prior season. His work for Outside Mullingar at Shadow received the Sterling Award for Outstanding Set Design. He was resident designer of The Canadian Badlands Passion Play in Drumheller from its inaugural season in 1994 until 2008. With Wishbone Theatre he designed Red and Freud’s Last Session at The Fringe in Edmonton. VanHeyst retired in 2019 from The King’s University where he led the drama and visual art programs since 1993. He enjoys painting landscapes while on the road with his wife Rhonda, in his home studio in Edmonton, and, more recently, in Mexico.
Leona Brausen
Costumes


Leona Brausen
Costumes
Leona is a three-time Sterling Award winner for costume design and has designed costumes for a number of Shadow Theatre productions including The Mountaintop, Happy Birthday Baby J, Heisenberg, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, The Comedy Company, The Best Brothers, Slumberland Motel, Fly me to the Moon, Annapurna, Crescendo and many others. She recently designed The Fiancé and Clue at The Citadel. Leona is a host and producer of the hit comedy show Hey Ladies! She has worked extensively with Teatro la Quindicina acting and designing many costumes for them including: The Bad Seed, Pith!, The Vile Governess and Other Psychodramas, Cocktails at Pam’s and The Oculist’s Holiday. Other design credits include The Mayfield Dinner Theatre’s Hair, Deathtrap, Hairspray, Back to the 80’s, All Shook up and Canada Rocks.
Dave Clarke
Sound


Dave Clarke
Sound
Dave Clarke is a composer, sound designer, actor, teacher and writer with four decades of professional experience in live theatre. He has been based In Edmonton since the early 90s. Sound designs and original composition for theatre includes: BLOOMSDAY, THE COMEDY COMPANY, OUTSIDE MULLINGAR (Shadow Theatre), THE TEMPEST, A BRIMFUL OF ASHA, MARY’S WEDDING, NETWORK (Citadel Theatre), THE CARDIAC SHADOW, WE HAD A GIRL BEFORE YOU,SOMETHING UNSPOKEN (Northern Light Theatre). Projection designs include BRAVO and THE MOUNTAINTOP (Shadow Theatre). Dave is a child of deaf adults – a CODA – and his family musical about growing up with a Deaf mother, SONGS MY MOTHER NEVER SUNG ME – premiered in Edmonton in 2019, and hopefully with pandemic restrictions shifting will be seen across Canada.
Michael Healey
Playwright


Michael Healey
Playwright
Michael trained as an actor at Toronto’s Ryerson Theatre School in the mid -eighties. He began writing for the stage in the early nineties and his first play, a solo one-act called KICKED, was produced at the Fringe of Toronto Festival in 1996. He subsequently toured the play across Canada and internationally, winning the Dora Mavor Moore Award for best new play.
THE DRAWER BOY, his first full-length play, premiered in Toronto in 1999, winning the Dora Award for best new play, the Chalmers Canadian Playwriting Award and the Governor General’s Literary Award (Canada’s highest literary honour). It has been translated into German, French, Japanese and Hindi and continues to be produced regularly across North America and internationally.
Healey’s other works include THE ROAD TO HELL (co-authored with Kate Lynch), PLAN B, RUNE ARLIDGE, THE INNOCENT EYE TEST, THE NUTTALLS, ARE YOU OKAY and 1979. His informal trilogy focusing on Canadian values and politics, entitled GENEROUS, COURAGEOUS, and PROUD, met with great critical success and individually have had multiple productions. Most recently, his play THE MASTER PLAN had its world premiere at Crow’s Theatre in Toroto. In all, his plays have won the Dora Mavor Moore Award for best new play five times.
He has also adapted works by Chekhov, Molnar, Hecht & MacArthur, Dürrenmatt and Shaw for Soulpepper, and the Stratford and Shaw festivals. He continues to find work as an actor occasionally.
Christopher Hicks
Production Manager


Christopher Hicks
Production Manager
Christopher Hicks but mostly just known as Hicks, since there is a saturation of Chris’ in his generation in this world. Is a seasoned theatre and festival production creator. He has worked a ton of major festivals in Edmonton and internationally, from dinosaur building with electronic music to downhill canoe racing on snow to the Edmonton Folk Music Festival and of course years of Fringe. Graduating from the MacEwan Theatre Production program 10 years ago, Hicks is still making art happen and enjoys it!
Like many I’m sure, Hicks has been successfully navigating the feast or famine, zero to sixty entertainment climate that has been the last 2 years. Avoiding burnout and learning all the intricacies of live streaming theatre, along with the reality of filming/multi-media shows in general, he has been quite proud of some of the recent achievements!
Hicks is stoked to be joining Shadow Theatre for our return to the stage and this will be his 4th season in a row with Shadow! Once again ready for whatever dynamic challenges this production will present, he is ready to continue working, creating great pieces!
However… who wants to run away to the ski hills with me?!