2025 Directors' Showcase
When and Where
Description
The CDTPS presents the 2025 DRM402 Directors’ Showcase, featuring eight short plays staged over two evenings and two matinee performances. This Fringe Festival–style theatrical event runs from November 21 to 23 at the Playhouse. The Directors’ Showcase is a capstone course that gives student directors the opportunity to flex their creative muscles onstage.
The titles of the eight productions, play descriptions, production and cast teams can be found below.
Friday, Nov. 21, 7:30 PM (M. Butterfly, Talk to Me Like the Rain and Let Me Listen, Death and the Fool, Stop Kiss)
Saturday, Nov. 22, 2:00 PM (M. Butterfly, Talk to Me Like the Rain and Let Me Listen, Death and the Fool, Stop Kiss)
Saturday, Nov. 22, 7:30 PM (This is a Play, Macbeth, Members Only, Savage/Love)
Sunday, Nov. 23, 2:00 PM (This is a Play, Macbeth, Members Only, Savage/Love)
Each show is approximately 10 to 15 minutes. There will also be an opening night reception on Friday, November 21, 2025.
There will be a talkback session with student directors and actors following the matinee on Sunday, November 23, 2025.
Shows will run at the following dates and times:
Performances in series A will run in the below order on November 21 at 7:30 PM and November 22 at 2:00 PM.
To reserve your tickets, visit 2025directorsshowcase.eventbrite.ca.
René Gallimard is a diplomat from France who has been sent to Beijing. While acclimating to life in China, Gallimard meets and becomes enamored by Song Liling, an opera singer who wears traditional ornate dress and makeup. The two begin a relationship, but unfortunately for Gallimard, there is much about Song that he doesn't know. Among the revelations that Gallimard must contend with is the discovery that his lover is a man.
Creative Team:
Playwright: David Henry Hwang
Director: Cici NIE Wenxi
Lighting Designer: Val Vergara
Sound Designer: Yifei Fan
Stage Manager: Runxin Hu
Cast:
Rene Gallimard: David Tudor
Song Liling: Yixuan Chen
Puppeteer: JYX
Please note: There will be offensive lines concerning issues about orientalism, racial and self-identities.
Two unnamed characters, Man and Woman, live in a crumbling flat on the Lower East Side. He is a drunk, and she is purposefully wasting away — but between them there is an intimacy of desperation.
Creative Team:
Playwright: Tennessee Williams
Director: Mila Frumovitz
Set Designer: Mila Frumovitz
Costume Designer: Mila Frumovitz
Lighting Designer: Faith Chhoyang
Projection Designer: Faith Chhoyang
Sound Designer: Hero Dela Cruz
Cast:
Woman: Cass Iacovelli
Please note: deals frankly with topics such as anxiety, abuse, and sexuality. Additionally, suggestions of alcoholism and pregnancy loss may be inferred from the text.
While Jesus hosts his last supper in the next room, three Layabouts and a Fool are playing cards. When Death appears before them, the Layabouts flee in terror, yet the Fool remains. Smitten by her beauty, the Fool attempts to court Death as only a fool would.
Creative Team:
Playwright: Dario Fo & Franca Rame
Director: Nathan R. Belyea
Lighting Designer: Val Vergara
Sound Designer: Val Vergara
Hair & Make-up Designer: Mila Frumovitz
Stage Manager: Golshan Alaei
Cast:
Death: Anneke Rorden
Fool: Erika Dowd
In present day New York, two women form a bond. Callie is taking care of Sara's cat, but over time, becomes more than just a cat sitter. All the while, the countdown to an unexpected event has been getting closer and closer to changing their lives.
Creative Team:
Playwright: Diana Son
Director: Kit Dixon
Light Designer: Yifei Fan
Projection Designer: Yifei Fan
Sound Designer: Yifei Fan
Cast:
Callie: Mollie Guest
Sara: Mia Downing
George: Juan Parra
Poster designed by Kit Dixon
Performances in series B will run in the below order on November 22 at 7:30 PM and November 23 at 2:00 PM
It is a hilarious metaplay. This is a Play follows three actors who, while performing, reveal their own thoughts and motivations as they struggle through crazy stage directions and an unoriginal musical score.
Creative Team:
Playwright: Daniel MacIvor
Director: Sichun Xia
Light Designer: Jade Miranda
Sound Designer: Yifei Fan
Cast:
Female Actor: Angie Lei
Older Female Actor: Hannah DeVellis
Male Actor: Qilin Yu
Composer: Jinny Kim
An excerpt from Macbeth beginning with act 1, scene 7.
Creative Team:
Playwright: William Shakespeare
Director: Samuel Barnes
Lighting Design: Faith Chhoyang
Sound Design: Jialing You and Alize Zhao
Projection Design: Mahi Chowdhury
Cast:
Macbeth: Raphael Glazov
Lady Macbeth: Isabella Black
This ten-minute comedy provides a glimpse of the afterlife as a fascinating alternate reality that simultaneously mirrors the modern-day land of the living. The main protagonist, Karen, finds herself in this new world after her recent death. Stuck in limbo, she attempts to move on and find peace but is held back by an unexpected challenge. She has 10 minutes to complete an unusual quest in order to pass onto a better place. As time begins to run out, we ask ourselves, what lies in wait if she fails to complete the quest?
Creative Team:
Playwright: Jane Cafarella
Director: Valeria Macgregor-Ordonez
Lighting Designer & Sound Designer: Hero Dela Cruz
Projection Designer: Faith Chhoyang
Cast:
Karen Smith: Kenney Vandelinde
Concierge: Jude Killoran
Gabriel: Adam Rowan
Savage/Love is a poetic exploration of love and relationships in its most heartfelt, visceral, and uncomfortable forms. Rejection, longing, awkwardness, devotion, all exploring love found and lost.
Creative Team:
Playwright: Sam Shepard
Director: Lev Tokol
Lighting Designer & Sound Designer: Hero Dela Cruz
Composer: Lev Tokol
Set Builder: Jade Miranda
Projection Design: Jade Miranda
Rehearsal Stage Manager: Irene Yu
Cast:
Adelaine Aniag
Artemis Riedmueller
Kenney Vandelinde
Poster designed by Kit Dixon