JIM MCNABB

TotoToo Theatre is pleased to welcome guest director, Jim McNabb, to the team as we gear up to present Jigsaw Confession in January, 2008.

Jim is a long time drama educator (former Head of Drama at Arts Canterbury, workshop leader at NAC, in charge of Adult Drama at Ottawa Little Theatre) and member of ACTRA and Actors’ Equity, He now teaches part time at Algonquin College and writes Study Guides for English Theatre at the National Arts Centre.

Jim is a member of the Advisory Committee on the Arts for the Ottawa Carleton District School Board and a former member of the Board for Arts Court. He has appeared in films and TV with roles in Rudy, H2O, Time Bomb and Largo Winch. He has worked in regional and community theatres across Canada and Britain playing title roles in Macbeth, Hosannah, Tartuffe, and Visiting Mr. Green. Jim has directed extensively in Ottawa with such favourites as The Glass Menagerie, Waiting In The Wings¸ Anything Goes, The Women, and last year’s production of Ten Lost Years for Algonquin.

David Lohrey

TotoToo Theatre has started a great tradition in community theatre by inviting the playwrights to Ottawa to see their plays performed, and we are thrilled to announce that David Lohrey will be attending our opening night.

David completed his undergraduate degree at UC, Berkeley. Later, he studied creative writing at San Francisco State University, UCLA, and California State University, Los Angeles where he completed his MA. David now teaches at the college level in New Jersey, and is Literary Manager at Theatre-Studio, Inc. in New York City.

David's plays have received productions and staged readings across the country, including Group Rep and FirstStage in Los Angeles, The Long Beach Playhouse, the Dayton Playhouse, the Turnip Company, ArtGroup, and TRU's 2nd Annual NYC Play Festival.

His work has received awards in competitions such as New Century Writers' Competition, Riverside Stage Company's Founder's Award Competition, Harvest Festival of New Plays at the Sonoma County Rep, the 1998 Writers' Digest Writing Competition, the 1999 Writer's Digest Writing Competition, and the Generic Theater Company's Dog Days Festival. For three years, David has been a voting member for TheatreLA's annual Ovation Awards. He has been a member of the Dramatists Guild since 1982, and recently joined the Play Selection Committee at the Long Beach Playhouse.

Jigsaw Confession was first presented under the title Illuminating Manuscripts in a staged reading at First Stage, Hollywood, California, in 1996, and first produced in one-act form at Theatre-Studio, Inc., New York City in 2000.