The Performers
Steve Ivings is well-known to local audiences. He is also well-known to non-local audiences but who cares about them. He started his professional career at age sixteen doing stand-up comedy and celebrity impersonations. The celebrity impersonations gave Steve his first taste of satire as he lampooned their voices, mannerisms and careers. Steve also spent a lot of time writing comedy, music and special material for a number of popular variety shows. Those shows were performed all over town including at the Oak Bay Beach Hotel, the Crystal Gardens, the Ocean Pointe Resort and the Charlie White Theatre. Steve was also a recognized voice and personality on CFAX radio for many years and his comedy album, cleverly titled Steve's Record, was nominated for a Juno Award. He has worked all over Canada and the US including the MGM Grand in Reno and Las Vegas. Now he's doing Broadway Bash at the Langham Court Theatre during the 2019 Victoria Fringe Festival. Without question, the pinnacle of his career.
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Juilliard-trained Lena Palermo spent many years performing in various local musical variety shows. At the Oak Bay Beach Hotel she played lead roles in Around the World in Eighty Minutes, A Charles Dickens Christmas, A Musical Comedy Christmas and Hooray for Hollywood to name a few (well, four). At the Charlie White Theatre in Sidney she appeared for two summers in Fabulous Fridays (on Fridays). Lena moved to Toronto in 2003 where she appeared onstage in a variety of different roles playing the Wicked Witch in Oz Recalled, Annabelle in Utah’s Crying and Gymnasia in A Funny Thing Happened on The Way to The Forum. As well, in Toronto, in addition to working in a number of television and film projects, Lena created the Studio 60 Theatre, producing and directing fifty shows over nine years. (That’s fifty different shows; that’s much more difficult than the alternative). Currently, Lena is teaching music and is the Artistic Director of the Peninsula Singers.
Cody Miller |
Craig Wilson is a veteran of many shows with the Victoria Operatic Society and is well remembered for his 2013 tour de force performance as The Engineer in Miss Saigon. He was so good many local engineers brought their families just to see him. Craig’s other VOS credits include Bobby in Crazy For You, Nicely Nicely Johnson in Guys and Dolls, Lumiere in Beauty and the Beast (singing and doing “light” comedy), Anthony in Sweeny Todd, Tommy in Brigadoon and various other roles in Grease, Will Rogers Follies and Broadway, Decades in Review (a Broadway tribute show). Craig has also “trod the boards” (and appeared onstage) at Langham Court Theatre in Company, Blood Brothers, Jitters and Mother Courage. Most recently he played the dual roles of Dr. Fine and Dr. Madden in Next to Normal. Most people didn’t even notice that the doctors never appear together at the same time. Now that’s acting.
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Stephanie couldn’t be happier to be doing another musical in the Fringe and is enjoying working with this fun group of singers. Well, let’s be honest. She could be happier. That’s not to say she’s not happy but “couldn’t be happier”? Throw in a limo driver, a dressing room full of flowers and a box of chocolates and she’d be happier. Either way, Stephanie is enjoying working with this cast and this cast is enjoying working with Stephanie, too. Stephanie has performed with and choreographed for many Victoria theatrical groups including the Victoria Operatic Society, Langham Court Theatre, Four Seasons and Theatre Inconnu. Although she has taken some time off over the past four years to have two babies she was most recently spotted on the McPherson stage in the VOS production of Anne of Green Gables at eight months pregnant. That’s dedication. When she’s not onstage or playing with her boys (her sons, we mean) she can be found teaching French at SMUS Junior School. Well, tres bien.
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Cody Miller is a graduate of the Spectrum Community School Fine Arts Program with a double Major in Band and Musical Theatre. In the band he played percussion, in the theatre he played Hairspray’s Corny Collins. That’s range. His other Victoria credits include The Addams Family with Kaleidoscope Theatre, Thoroughly Modern Millie, A Christmas Story, A Chorus Line and Monty Python’s Spamalot with Victoria Operatic Society. And most recently, showing that range again, Cody appeared in Urintown but with Langham Court Theatre. Cody has also performed in several chorus line cabarets with Gotta Getta Gimmick (he likes alliteration) and is currently playing drums and percussion with the Best Coast Big Band (more alliteration). When Cody’s not singing, acting or drumming, he is showing even more of his range welcoming patrons to Brown’s Social House on Douglas. The tourists love him. |
Helena has been singing since she was a child, belting out her very own self-created operas high on a hill in the playground. There’s no record of the impact it had on her fellow playmates but they didn’t run home screaming for their mothers which is a good thing. A few years later, Helena saw a production of Fiddler on the Roof and it inspired her to seriously consider a career in the theatre (and, also, to try to become a rich man). Now, Helena, a graduate of the Canadian College of Performing Arts, has appeared as Princess Jasmine in Aladdin, various ensemble parts in Sunset Boulevard and Anne of Green Gables, and most recently, Elinor Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility. She really enjoyed her role at Charlotte Corday in Marat/Sade with CCPA, a show that put the audience’s teeth on edge at time. Then again, they knew what they signed up for. Now Helena is part of the ensemble of Broadway Bash. After which she will maybe head to the playground and make up more operas to sing for surprised little children.
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