STAFF
-
FAY NASS
FOUNDER & ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
Fay Nass is an interdisciplinary artist, curator, and cultural producer whose work centres queering as both method and practice. With a deep commitment to disrupting dominant narratives, Fay engages in genre-bending and form-shifting to create spaces that challenge normative frameworks around identity, belonging, and representation. Their creative process is rooted in collaboration, experimentation, and embodied knowledge — often blurring the lines between theatre, performance, installation, and cinema.
Fay’s work has been presented across Canada and internationally, earning recognition for its bold, boundary-pushing vision. At its heart, their practice is an invitation: to unlearn, to reimagine, and to create new possibilities and aesthetics.
Fay is the founder and Artistic Director of Aphotic Theatre company, the Artistic Director of the frank theatre company, and a freelance curator and programmer for the Vancouver International Film Festival.
-
ERIN PURGHART
ASSOCIATE PRODUCER & OPERATIONS MANAGER
Erin Purghart is an actor, comedian and award-winning producer based in Lower Mainland, BC. They graduated with a BFA in Acting from the University of British Columbia in 2021, and have since worked as performer and producer in local independent film, professional theatre productions, and comedy shows across North America. They are the producer and host of the constantly sold out comedy show, That’s gay! comedy, associate producer at Aphotic Theatre, and producer of multi-award winning short film, DTF?, as well as Bob Odenkirk and Jane Schoenbrun executive produced short film, She’s Nonbinary.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
-
CHELSEA HABERLIN
BOARD PRESIDENT
Chelsea Haberlin (She/Her) has lived most of her life on the traditional and unceded territories of the Coast Salish people, specifically the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations and is honoured to call this gorgeous place her home. She is a white woman of mixed Italian-Scottish-English-Swiss heritage. She is a mom and is married to theatre artist Sebastien Archibald.
Chelsea has been creating theatre in some form since she was a very little girl making plays in her basement. She is the Artistic Director of Neworld Theatre and Associate Artist with ITSAZOO Productions, a company she co-founded in 2006. As a director she has worked with: ITSAZOO Productions, Neworld Theatre, Realwheels, Arts Club Theatre, Firehall Arts Centre, Theatre SKAM, Pacific Theatre, Delinquent Theatre, Studio 58, and many more. Chelsea is forever searching for new ways to surprise and engage an audience and is particularly passionate about meaningful collaboration, immersive environments, community engagement, and reconciliation.
Chelsea has an MFA in directing from UBC and a BFA from UVic and has been an adjunct professor at UBC. She is the recipient of the Sydney J Risk award in directing, the Ray Michal award for an outstanding body of work by an emerging director and a two-time winner, and a five-time Jessie Richardson Award nominee for Outstanding Direction. She is a member of the advisory committee for Balancing Act, sits on the boards of the Creekview Housing Coop (where she is grateful to live!), and Aphotic Theatre.
-
MEGHAN HEMINGWAY
SECRETARY
Hemingway is an award-winning Screenwriter and Actor. Her feature comedy screenplay The Night My Mother Slapped Me (winner of the NY International Women In Film screenplay competition and official selection at the New York Tri-State International Film Festival) is in-development with Instilling Productions and The Donaldson Company. She is currently developing her original dramatic series, Archipelago, with Blue Ant Media and her feature horror film The Final Girl, with The Donaldson Company. In 2024 Hemingway’s short screenplay horror-thriller Sleeping Dogs was a semifinalist in the Outstanding Screenplay Competition and a quarterfinalist in the Shoot Your Short Screenplay competition. In 2024, Hemingway's award-winning original pilot, the psychological thriller, Addendum took home top honors, winning Best Pilot at Gender Equity in Media Film Festival and Best Screenplay at New York International Women In Film Festival and in 2023 she pitched and sold a feature film concept to The Hallmark Channel. Hemingway is the Artistic Director of The Vancouver Horror Show Film Festival, she is a board member for Aphotic Theatre Company in Vancouver and you can catch Hemingway on The Mysterious Benedict Society on Disney+ and in Schmigadoon on Apple TV, and in the upcoming indie horror anthology series, Classified: Land of Bigfoot. In her spare time she solves Rubik's Cubes and does cartwheels. -
ANITA ZANGENEH
TREASURER
Anita Zangeneh is a psychometrist with a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from UBC, now pursuing her Master’s in Clinical Psychology. Passionate about somatic therapy, she loves exploring the connection between mental health and the arts. With a lifelong love for creativity, Anita has performed as a stage actor and singer, blending her interests in healing and expression.
-
CARMEN ALATORRE
MEMBER AT LARGE
Originally from Mexico, Carmen earned her MFA degree in Theatre Design at the University of British Columbia (2010) and is currently based in lək̓ʷəŋən and WSÁNEĆ Territories (Victoria, BC). Having designed over 90 productions, some of her recent costume design credits were seen in companies such as: Arts Club Theatre Company, Bard on the Beach, Globe Theatre Regina, Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, Citadel Theatre, Electric Company, Theatre Calgary, The Grand Theatre in Ontario, Milwaukee Rep Theater, Chicago Shakespeare Theater and Washington Shakespeare Company. She co-curated the Canadian Exhibition at the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space in 2023. Carmen is an Assistant Professor in Performance Design at the University of Victoria and a recipient of four Jessie Richardson Theatre Awards. For more information visit: carmenalatorre.com