Meet the Creative Team

Christopher Brown- Set Designer

Christopher Brown is chairman of John Abbott College Theatre Program where he has taught Set Design for the last thirty years. He is also a long serving faculty member at the National Theatre School of Canada in Montreal. Christopher has continued to design professionally for theatres in and around Montreal. He designed the original 2005 Production of Till We Meet Again with Theatre Panache and is delighted to have been invited to re-design the current 2009 production.

Daveen Garland – Stage Manager

After graduating from Concordia University with a BFA in Theatre studies, Daveen has had the opportunity as Stage Manager and assistant Stage Manager at theaters in and around Montreal. She is delighted to accompany the Cast and Crew of Till We Meet Again on the second Canadian Tour. When she is not Stage Managing, she occasionally performs Gilbert & Sullivan with Lakeshore Light Opera, and has recently completed a run as The Duchess of Plaza Toro in Pointe Claire, Quebec. Other credits include Directing, Costume Design for several productions, teaching and a busy home life as a wife and mother.

David J. Langlois - Playwright

Born at home in Lee-on-the-Solent, Hampshire, England and came to Canada as a child, David J. Langlois has always had an interest in history and the role people play in it; what they did, why they did it, where and when, and how they felt when they were doing it, or afterwards.

As a young man, and later, Langlois would spend hours speaking with people much older than him and listen to them describe their childhood and their youth. He was fascinated to hear people describe first-hand their experiences as they grew up, such as riding a motorcycle in WW2, or driving their father’s “motor” in Toronto in 1914. He once spent several hours listening to a very old man speak of his father, who had fought in the American Civil War.

One era of particular interest was what people had done during WW2. This interest came honestly, as his father had served in the armed forces throughout the war, and his mother had delivered the mail since “all the men were away at war”.

He remembers distinctly spending a weekend in July 1994 with several other couples. One of the men had just returned from the 50th Anniversary celebrations of D-Day in Normandy, France and when he enquired as to why he had been there, the man recounted a most moving story about landing on the beach in the first wave of troops, being blown up by a mortar bomb within a few seconds, and watching several of his closest friends die.

Langlois also has a life-long interest in music.

The net result of these two interests (history and music) was his writing Till We Meet Again. When he first began writing the play, he was mainly interested in creating a period piece as a vehicle to showcase the music of that era. However, to ensure that he had his facts correct, he spent a year conducting in-depth interviews with many people who had served in the armed forces, or who had lived in Canada during WWII. As they recounted their stories, he realized that the oral history they were recounting deserved a far better rendition and historical record in the play. The play evolved into a showcase for their experiences and feelings, with the music and dancing as support.

Langlois hopes that the play brings you some measure of understanding of the trials and tribulations our parents and grandparents went through in order that we may live in peace, safety and security in this wonderful land called Canada.

Heather Markgraf Lowe –Director

Heather is both a graduate of Concordia Theatre Department and McGill’s Department of Education. In 1993 she founded Hudson Village Theatre, which she ran for eleven years as Artistic and Executive Director. Some of her directing credits at Village Theatre include, Thirteen Hands, Woman in Black, The Melville Boys, Drinking Alone, The Wild Guys and Music of the Stars. Heather went on to work at Miss Edgar and Miss Cramp’s School as the Director of Development and from there to Concordia’s Theatre Department as the Director of Theatre Facilities. She has also taught theatre arts at Lower Canada College and courses in Building a Character for local actors in the Hudson area. As an actor, Heather will be remembered for her role as Shirley in Shirley Valentine and Melissa Gardner in Love Letters.

Heather is now Artistic Director of Theatre Panache, a non-profit company she founded in 2003. In 2005 Heather produced and directed Till We Meet Again by David Langlois, which went on tour in the Toronto and Ottawa area. In 2006 Heather directed and produced Brigit’s Reel by Trish Barclay and Marc Desormeau at Centaur Theatre and Till We Meet Again at the D. B. Clarke Theatre, Concordia University. Since then Heather has been busy running Hudson Productions, a company which hires actors to train custom officers at the Rigaud Learning Centre.

Heather wants to thank her tremendously supportive husband and the wonderful Till We Meet Again cast and team who have been so supportive over the years. Finally, a special thank you goes out to Stephanie McNamara and Rick Fitzgerald who believe in the show and are responsible for this remount.

Eric Mongerson – Lighting Designer

Eric Mongerson worked in and studied Theatre in the United States for ten years before coming to Concordia University in 1980. Eric earned a B.F.A. Performing Arts (Design and Technology) at Rockford College (Rockford, Illinois) in 1975, and a M.F.A. Scenic Design and Technical Production at Humboldt State University (Arcata, California) in 1978.

He received Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) funding as a co-investigator with Stephen Snow on “Performance-based Research: Changing Perspectives on Developmental Disabilities through Ethnodrama”.

He has taught set and lighting design, stage management, theatre administration and theatre technology. He has consulted for Scénoplus and Cirque du Soleil on equipment installation and theatrical problem solving. He has designed lighting for many productions across North America. At Concordia he has served as Technical Director, Theatre Manager, Production Coordinator, Designer for the Theatre Coordinator and Chair of the Department from 1993 - 2002. His students have designed for, Broadway, Cirque du Soleil and Stratford. He is on the boards of directors of both the Canadian Institute for Theatre Technology / L’Institut Canadien des Technologies Scénographiques (CITT / ICTS) and the Centre Québécois de L’Institut Canadien des Technologies Scénographiques (CQICTS).

Karen Pearce - Costume Designer

Although Karen dabbled in the various elements of theatre since her first production in 1989, taking on the roles of performer, stage manager, set designer, script writer, director and producer it wasn't long before she discovered her passion for costuming. Karen has costumed full scale Broadway Musical Productions with Becket Players and the Hudson Music Club, large ensembles such as The Village Theatre’s Christmas Pantomime and Lyric Theatre’s Singers Spring Production as well smaller ensemble productions such as Rumours for the Village Theatre and other Theatre Panache Productions, Brigitte's Reel and Woman in Black. She has a special fondness for period costuming so Till We Meet Again has real appeal for her. Karen has also amassed a sizeable stock of costumes which she tries vainly to contain in her basement.

Seamus Ryan – Assistant Stage Manager

Seamus is delighted to be touring once more with the wonderful cast of Till We Meet Again. Seamus has worked as a Stage Manager, Designer and Technical Director in and around the Montreal area for the last six years. Previous Stage Management credits include Bridgit's Reel (Theatre Panache), Haunted Hillbilly, Oooo! (Sidemart Theatrical Grocery) Mella Mella! (Black Theatre Workshop) Radio Gals (Theatre Lac Brome).

Lorna Wayne - Choreographer

Lorna has choreographed Cabaret shows for the Condado Hotel Puerto Rico, Frenchmen's Reef Hotel St. Thomas, RCCL, Carnival and Holland America Cruise Lines, Radio Canada, The Manoir Richelieu , The Montreal and Lac Leamy Casinos, and regularly choreographs for Corporate Events. In the last ten years she has worked on ten shows for the Dora Wasserman Yiddish theatre, including, Fiddler On The Roof, On Second Avenue and Those Were The Days with runs in Toronto, New York, Los Angeles and Florida . Lorna is absolutely over the moon to be back working on Till We Meet Again.
Thanks Heather, Thanks Rick.

Marian Siminski - Dixie Coleman and Musical Director

Musical Director and Pianist, Marian Siminski, has been with Theatre Panache’s production of Till We Meet Again since 2003. With her arrival, the task of being the show’s accompanist was augmented into the role of Dixie Coleman, the in-studio radio pianist, allowing her to interact with the other performers.

A graduate of Marianopolis College as a Music Voice Major, Marian also holds performance diplomas in voice and in piano from Toronto’s Royal Conservatory of Music. During her final studies, she was a vocal finalist in a CBC competition and holds a silver medal in piano performance from the RCM.

She is the musical director for Gilbert and Sullivan productions of Lakeshore Light Opera, Montreal, where she conducts an 18-piece orchestra. She is no stranger to the world of stage, performing, singing, and directing choral groups. On staff at the Camp Musical d’Asbestos as a choral director, she takes on in summer 2009, the added role of co-director for this band camp. She has directed many Broadway musicals and with the help of her fellow musicians on bass and percussion, provides the show music as well. With a select group of voice and piano students, she maintains a busy daily schedule.