Rosebud graduates working in the arts

Laureen F. Guenther
Times Contributor

 

Strathmore Times readers cheer on Rosebud School of the Arts (RSA) students, applaud their onstage and behind-the-scenes work, and celebrate when they graduate and move on.
We were curious about where graduates go from here, so we reached out to recent Fellows of Rosebud School of the Arts (FRSAs), asking what they’re up to. Here’s what some of them told us.
Laura Gillespie, who graduated from RSA’s Acting program in 2013, e-mailed that she lives in London, England and will move to Scotland in November. She creates and posts a twice-weekly YouTube vlog (video log) “about travel, London and life.”
She’s also a creator on Patreon. Working as a sales assistant pays living expenses and allows her to travel around Britain and Europe. She’s acted with Northern Lights Theatre and Rosebud Theatre, earning a Calgary Critics’ Award nomination as best supporting actress for her performance as the witch in Rosebud Theatre’s Wizard of Oz.
Amy Burks, another 2013 Acting graduate, lives in Calgary. “Everything is blended together in a big kaleidoscope,” she e-mailed about life since graduation. She’s won two acting awards, including Calgary Critics’ best supporting actress award for The Shakespeare Company’s Romeo and Juliet.
Alix Cowman, a 2014 Acting graduate, also lives in Calgary, working as an actor, a music director, composer and performer, and a barista. She’s acted in a dozen shows, she e-mailed, with Rosebud Theatre, Birnton Theatricals and the IGNITE! Festival. She acted and directed music in Wildwood Fire, playing in Rosebud, Calgary and the Saskatoon Fringe. She performs with The Dearhearts, who released an album, toured in Canada and the U.S., and were regional finalists in CBC’s Searchlight Competition.
“I’m still doing everything I dreamed I would get to do when I graduated,” she wrote, “and enjoying every minute of it.”
Jenny Daigle, a 2015 Acting graduate, emailed that she’s acted and worked in fight direction and lighting design with The Shakespeare Company, Canadiana Musical Theatre Company, Music & Play, Urban Stories and Rosebud School of the Arts. She’s also been artist-in-residence with Trickster Theatre. She attended the 2016 World Stage Combat conference, helped teach stage combat at RSA, did camp programming and served in Rosebud’s Haskayne-Kenney Mercantile.
Naomi Esau, a 2015 Theatre Arts program graduate, is in Rosebud, she e-mailed, stage-managing Rosebud Theatre’s An Inspector Calls. Over the past year, she’s stage managed and acted in Calgary, Rosebud and Red Deer, with The Shakespeare Company, Heritage Park, Fire Exit Theatre, Alberta Theatre Projects, Theatre of Consequence, Primestock Theatre, Rosebud School of the Arts and Rosebud Theatre. Since the spring, she wrote, she’s been supporting herself solely through theatre.
Gillespie wants to keep writing, video-logging and singing, “find a way to mix it all together and to make it financially sustainable.”
She hopes to grow her YouTube subscribers list, expand her Patreon work, and continue acting. “Maybe I could write/act/film a web series,” she said.
Cowman, who wants to work in the arts full-time, will perform in Songs For a New World at Cappuccino Musical Theatre in Calgary, Oct. 14 to 16. She said The Dearhearts hope to produce another album this year.
Daigle has temporarily moved back to her hometown of Red Lake, Ont., where she’s dramaturg, producer and director for Nos Voix Sont Encore Fortes – Our Voices are Still Strong. She’ll tour with Emily Carr – Small Wonders in November, and attend Paddy Crean Stage Combat workshop in Banff in January.
Esau will stage manage How the World Began with Fire Exit Theatre in January, and act in Rumpelstiltskin with Birnton Theatricals in May and June. As actor and stage-manager, she said, “I’d love to work with theatre companies all across Canada as I continue this life full of theatre.”
And we’ll continue to applaud as they thrive, cheering them on at every step.