Artistic Team

Written by Ben Townsley

Directed by Ray Strachan

Production Design and Audio Mastering by jaymez

Artistically Produced by Andraea Sartison & Gwendolyn Collins and Tanner Manson

Performed by Duncan Cox, Cuinn Joseph, Kara Joseph, Melissa Langdon, Montana Lehmann, Tanner Manson & Ben Townsley

Illustration & Graphic Design by Danielle Friesen

Promotional Trailers by Patrick Jordan

Made possible with the support of the Manitoba Arts Council

Ray Strachan

Ray is a Winnipeg born theatre artist of Grenadian and Filipino descent. He has trained with The Black Hole Theatre Company and at The Banff Centre for Performing Arts, and has worked at various Theatres across Canada. He was the inaugural winner of the Winnipeg Theatre Award (Evies) for Best Performance by a Lead Actor for his work in The Whipping Man in 2017, and is looking forward to returning to a Theatre Community who thrives on telling diversified stories, and represents the community that we live and work in.

Ben Townsley

Ben Townsley is a creator, performer and singer with a love of language, music and the absurd. Ben is a big believer in the idea of “accessibly deep theatre” and creates work that is both fun and raucous as well as intricate and heartfelt. He is also overjoyed to once again share in the collaborative process, face to six-foot-far face, and as such, it has been an honour and a pleasure to work and play with the beautiful hearts and minds of the wonderful Blink team.

jaymez

With a multi-faceted and distinct visual style, jaymez has worked in the visual art, dance, theatre and music communities. His work has been featured in a number of cities including Stratford, Edmonton, Regina, Saskatoon, Calgary, Montreal, Toronto, Edinburgh, London, Osnabrück, Germany and, Utrecht, Netherlands. In 2018 and 2019 he co-won the Winnipeg Theatre Award for outstanding design for his lighting and sound work. jaymez currently sits on the board of Video Pool Media Arts Centre and holds a BFA in Video from the University of Manitoba.

Tanner Manson

Tanner Manson (he/him) is a queer artist specializing in devised performance creation, poetry and physical theatre. Expect absurdist thoughts filled with love in his work. He does a little bit of everything and loves everything a lot- from performing, to administration, to constructing sets, to constructing scripts. He is co-founder of Walk&Talk where he, along with his best pals and collaborators, create new music-theatre. 

Kara Joseph

I’m Kara Joseph! I’m a performer/creator based in Winnipeg. I’ve been a big fan of music and theatre for as long I can remember. One thing lead to another and I found myself studying voice at the Desautels Faculty of Music at the University of Manitoba. Since then, I’ve been enjoying my time navigating my way through the theatre scene. While most of my experience is on stage, I’ve recently started writing and collaborating on projects (mostly with my old bean bag of a brother, Cuinn). I’m excited to work with the Blink team and have the opportunity to collaborate with some amazing artists! 

Duncan Cox

Duncan is a multi-faceted artist who is happy spending his days working across several different fields. He is a self taught multi-instrumentalist primarily playing the guitar but also the piano, bouzouki, button accordion, whistles, and many more. He is a singer-songwriter with a focus in the genres of folk, storytelling, and musical theatre. Currently, he’s thrilled to be writing a musical entitled Afterlight with his friend Sharon Bajer about aging, endings, and vampires! Duncan is very excited to explore the mediums of vocal character creation and development in Ben’s ever funky take on the radio-play format.

Melissa Langdon

My name is Melissa Langdon and I was born and live on Treaty 1 territory. My favourite places to be are by bodies of water. I love to watch the waves as they cascade onto the shoreline and see tiny grains of sand moving back and forth underneath the surface. I love to hear the crackle of dark clouds hovering over the ocean during thunderstorms. I also love the trickle of streams tumbling onto logs and stones of nearby creeks. I love music, in particular the sound of the violin. My favourite song of all time is Humoresque Op. 101, No. 7 by Antonín Dvořák which I learned to play when I was learning to find my inner confidence as a child. Rich notes of the G and D strings halfway into the song create the most powerful vibrations in my chest that can only be felt when the instrument is perfectly in tune. I want to believe that people are inherently good, and that even during the darkest of times there is still hope for a brighter future. I very much could be wrong on this point, but it gives me something to hold on to.

Cuinn Joseph

Oh hey, didn't see you there! I'm Cuinn Joseph and I'm a local writer, composer, and performer from Winnipeg, MB. My goal in life is simple: to make art that inspires others... and to perfect my fudge brownie recipe... and to marry rich. I am thrilled to be working on Blink while I attempt to complete at least one of those goals. If I come out of this experience and have let everyone down as an artist, but am a brownie-making trophy husband, I'll still consider this a rousing success.

Montana Lehmann

Montana Lehmann is a Latina performer born and raised in Winnipeg. She graduated from the University of Winnipeg in 2016 and since then has gone on to further her training at Vancouver's Studio 58. Montana is working on Blink from Vancouver and is over the moon to merge her two homes together. Close your eyes, and welcome to beach town!