BIOGRAPHIES
GILLIAN STEVENS-GUILLE ....Writer, Director
Gillian fostered a love of theatre from an early age.
She grew up in Edmonton where she attended workshops at the Citadel theatre,
performed in the Edmonton Fringe Festivals and with Rapid Fire Theatre’s Theatresports.
Gillian then attended Queen’s University, traveled across Canada, India, running from
her passion for all things theatrical when fate conspired to lead her to Jacqueline
McClintock in Toronto, who teaches the Meisner acting technique as developed by
acting guru Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse. When she worked with
this technique of acting, Gillian felt a "click". Gillian then moved to New York
City to attend the Neighborhood Playhouse, where she trained for two years.
While in NYC, Gillian was a company member of The Ensemble Studio Theatre whose
membership includes David Mamet, Arthur Miller and Steve Martin. At EST she wrote,
directed and performed in a successful run of original work called Assembly Required.
Gillian did readings, workshops and way way off-off-broadway work before moving back
to Toronto where she appeared in three different productions of Uninvited, playing the
role of Connie. Johanna Kristolaitis of University of Toronto’s The Medium Online
reviewed that Gillian “played [Connie] to near perfection.” She also played Thais in The
Conversion of the Harlot Thais at the Studio Theatre. She performed in Departures and
Arrivals for Cabbagetown Theatre and played Theresa in Daniel MacIvor’s Marion Bridge in
Montreal which was directed by Jacqueline McClintock. Matt Radze of the Montreal Gazette
applauded the "powerful acting" of this production.
Gillian has finally settled down in Lotus Land. She recently completed a baby clown
intensive with clown master John Turner (Smoot of Mump and Smoot). She teaches beginner
and intermediate Meisner acting technique workshops in Vancouver with Russell Bennett.
Gillian is writing her first one-woman show called Self-Storage, which will be touring
eight Canadian Fringe Festivals this summer. Gillian will perform and Russell will direct.
She is also developing another play with Russell called Rocket Man for the same Fringe
Festival tour this summer. The Reefer Man is Gillian’s Canadian directorial debut.
RUSSELL BENNETT ....Director
Originally from Toronto, actor, documentary filmmaker and lawyer Russell
Bennett began acting at the age of ten. He earned his Bachelor of Science at 20,
his Bachelor of Laws at 24, and became a lawyer at 26. Instead of a career in law,
however, Russell followed his passion to act. He began training with the Sanford
Meisner acting technique from Jacqueline McClintock in her Working Class of Toronto
while articling at Minden, Gross, Grafstein and Greenstein, Barristers and Solicitors.
Russell then trained for two years at New York’s Neighborhood Playhouse School of the
Theatre, where he met Gillian Stevens-Guille.
Russell’s first performed solo show was The Black Cat, which he adapted from Edgar
Allan Poe’s short story and performed in Toronto in June 2002. No press came to the show,
but audiences were dazzled. Russell has also acted in several plays including All My Sons
(Toronto Village Playhouse), Killing Time at the Crossroads of the World (Toronto Fringe
Festival, 2003), Cash on Delivery (Theatre Etobicoke), Envy (Toronto Fringe Festival, 2002)
, Coaching Matters (Toronto Fringe Festival, 2001), and A Late Summer’s Dream
(Soho 20, NYC), and short films including Memory Waters, which premiered at the
Virginia Film Festival, 2003, and The School, which screened at Sundance in 2004 and
won the Volkswagon Audience Award at the Toronto Worldwide Short Film Festival in 2003.
Russell played a lawyer very briefly in the CTV series The Associates,
and played in the feature films The Gospel of John, Le Mozart Noir and Fairytales
and Pornography. Russell also produced and directed STONED: Hemp Nation on Trial,
a 48-minute documentary chronicling Christopher Clay’s constitutional challenge of
Canada’s anti-cannabis law. STONED premiered on CBC Newsworld in 1998, and was
nominated for Best Political Documentary at the 1999 Hot Docs International Documentary
Festival. Russell also teaches the Meisner technique of acting in Vancouver with Gillian
Stevens-Guille.
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