Penn Kemp
Playwright/poet Penn Kemp performs in festivals around the world. Penn has published twenty books of poetry and drama, had six plays and ten CDs produced as well as Canada's first poetry CD-ROM. Penn is Series Editor for Pendas Poets Series.
Author of 25 books and 8 CDs, Penn edits the Pendas series of poetry book/cds. Poet, performer, creator of Sound Operas on line and live.
Since 1966, sound poet Penn Kemp has taught creative writing and sounding in schools, from Kindergarten to University. The League of Poets proclaimed her one of ten foremothers of Canadian poetry at their Ottawa AGM. Penn received her Honours BA in English from UWO and her M.Ed from OISE, U. of Toronto.
Since Coach House published her first book in 1972, Penn has been pushing text and aural boundaries, often in participatory performance. She presents her Sound Operas in happy collaboration with actors, poets and musicians, like Anne Anglin and Bill Gilliam, performing in arts festivals and conferences.
The Association of Canadian Studies sponsored Penn’s tours throughout India and Brazil, with the Canada Council's aid. http://mytown.ca/poemforpeace/ includes the video of Penn's "poem for peace in many voices" and, in audio, many of 112 translations. This video shows one of our performances in public spaces, this one in London ON. Another videopoem won for best performance (Voice Award), Vancouver Videopoem Festival.
Jeff Culbert
Jeff Culbert is a theatre actor and director based in London Ontario. His most recent directing work was for The Donnelly Trial, a courtroom drama based on transcripts of the trials that resulted from the murder of five members of the famous Donnelly family of Biddulph Township. Other directing work includes the plays of James Reaney, George F Walker, Robertson Davies, Sean O’Casey and seven original scripts.
As an actor, he won a Brickenden Award (for theatre in London) for Work, a one-man show by James O’Reilly which he also took to the Fringe Festival in Dublin Ireland. Another solo show, James Reaney’s One-man Masque, had three productions in London and Toronto.
He has had two plays produced: Running Rude and There’s a Monster that Lives in my Girlfriend, which was commissioned by The Arts Project.
He is the Artistic Director of Ausable Theatre, which has produced 21 plays to date, and he co-ordinates and directs for the PlayWrights Cabaret, a script development project at London’s Grand Theatre.
Jeff performed for many years with the performance art troupe The Bum Band, and he has experience in improvisational music and vocal sound design. Jeff is also a singer with a particular interest in Irish music.