A new world with new rules. Vibrant visions. Big possibilities.
A Downstage production with Immigrant Council for Arts Innovation
Conceived and Facilitated by Evan Medd
With new short plays by Cristhian Poblete Hernández, Miranda Martini, Camille Pavlenko, Ashay Vaidya
Dreaming Climate Consciousness is an experiment in hope, resilience and collective dreaming.
During a two-month process led by Evan, four playwrights will collaboratively imagine and inhabit a co-created speculative world. Immerse yourself in an evening of four original short plays that each offer a unique window into this collectively imagined universe.
Dive into a reimagined future with some of Calgary’s most vibrant artists!
Evan Medd (he/they) is a dramaturg, producer, performer, facilitator, and puppeteer who works across Turtle Island, primarily based in Mohkinstsis/Calgary on Treaty 7 territory, but who also sometimes works on Treaty 6 territory in amiskwaciywaskahikan/Edmonton, and out east in Prince Edward Island on Mi’kmaq territory.
Evan’s practice primarily focuses on dramaturgical strategizing of process design, mostly in collaboration with younger artists, community engaged art that intersects with environmental issues, and collaborative new play development and production with the Alberta-based Major Matt Mason Collective, for which they are a Co-Artistic Producer. A graduate of Simon Fraser University’s Performance Creation program, Evan is passionate about how dramaturgical practice can help artists discover themselves more deeply within the pursuit of artistic excellence, and how interdisciplinary performance practices can meaningfully engage communities in environmental and climate focused dialogues.
Evan spends his summers working in PEI at The River Clyde Pageant, a creative, community integrated outdoor spectacle that celebrates a social ecology while drawing attention to the impact of climate change on PEI’s waterways and ecosystems, and is currently researching and developing a similar project on the Bow River through Mudfoot Theatre with his collaborator Geneviève Pare, currently titled the Bow River Boat Pageant.
Evan has also spearheaded and facilitates an initiative called Dreaming Climate Consciousness, a collaborative process where participants work together to imagine eco-conscious futures through the lens of speculative/science fiction. Evan is passionate about utilizing creative practice as a means to stimulate both imagination and artistry while interrogating and examining the tensions that define our world.
Evan would like to thank the International Centre of Art for Social Change’s FUTURES/forward Mentorship Program for supporting them in building the DCC pilot project.
Also, Evan has endless gratitude for Dr. David Diamond, without whom this initiative would not exist.
Cristhian is a multidisciplinary creative professional based in Calgary, Canada, working across music composition, production, sound design, and arrangement, with influences spanning gospel, soul, and Latin genres.
His theatrical credits include sound design for Downstage Theatre and original music for stage productions in Lima, including La Nave de las Emociones (2022), his first project for musical theatre exploring emotional intelligence and the process of learning it, and La Magia de Ser Diferente (Psicoarte, 2026), centered on neurodivergent experience. His work also extends into interactive media, having contributed sound design and music to the award-winning video game El Tunche.
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Miranda Martini is a multidisciplinary artist with a sound-forward practice. Recent sound design credits include “Static: A Party Girl’s Memoirs” (Inside Out and Chromatic Theatre), “Beyond the Sea” (Lunchbox Theatre), and “The Verdict” (Vertigo Theatre). Her music direction and dramaturgy credits include “I Don’t Even Miss You” (multiple productions), “Countries Shaped Like Stars” (Lunchbox Theatre), and “John Ware Reimagined” (multiple productions). You can find her 2025 folk/R&B album, The Historian, on Bandcamp and all major streaming platforms, as well as on CD and vinyl at fine record stores across Calgary. Miranda is happiest when she’s creating and thinking about art in community with artists, particularly other queer artists of colour.
Camille (she/her) is a theatre and literary artist who is passionate about contributing to the arts ecology of Alberta—which should definitely stay in Canada. Her plays for children and adults have been produced across the province and her short fiction is forthcoming from ROOM, FreeFall Magazine, and Alberta Views, where she recently won the 2026 Short Fiction prize. Camille is a recent graduate of the University of British Columbia’s Creative Writing MFA program and the current Playwright in Residence at Quest Theatre. She is also the artistic associate at Verb Theatre, where she is especially honoured to lift up the voices of local Queer and Trans playwrights.
Ashay (ashêllheld) Vaidya, MA, MBA, is a first-generation lone migrant Canadian, an award-winning literary artist, and an experiential experimentalist from Moh’kins’tsis (Calgary). As a development specialist and peer supporter, he connects with community members to deconstruct the contemporary meaning of self-regard. As an artist, he explores the quiet complexities of belonging and empathy bleeding into social responsibility. And as an individual, he unravels emotionally nuanced perspectives that hope to enlighten the lives of instinctive healers.
Clare is an award-winning multidisciplinary artist who has worked with innovative creators across Canada as well as in Germany, Lebanon, Switzerland, Uganda and the USA.
Selected theatre directing credits include Botticelli in the Fire, Men Express Their Feelings (Downstage, Hit & Myth), Peril in the Alps (Vertigo), The F Word (Purple Tamarind), Liars at a Funeral (Alberta Theatre Projects, Western Canada Theatre), Beautiful Man (Downstage, Handsome Alice, Verb), A Poem for Rabia (Tarragon Theatre co-directed with Donna-Michelle St. Bernard), A Dinner Party, Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet), Myth of the Ostrich (Whitehorse Guild), Bystander (Gwaandak Theatre), White Girls in Moccasins (Rhubarb Festival), CAKE (Bayimba Festival, New Harlem Productions, Theatre Passe Muraille), Tuesdays & Sundays (Sundown Theatre), L’armoire des ombres (Le Monnot Theatre Beirut), Salome’s Clothes (SummerWorks), among others.
Clare made her feature directorial debut with Do Us Part, which premiered at the Calgary International Film Festival in 2025 and recently directed the allegorical short film Hunt/Peck, set for release in 2026. As an actor, she is known for playing Mathlete Caroline Krafft in the original Mean Girls, among other screen roles. Clare is the Artistic Director at Downstage.
Clare is the Artistic Director of Downstage in Calgary.
Javier is a Mexican-Canadian visual performance creator, stage director, movement choreographer and translator. He has collaborated with companies such as Vertigo Theatre, Theatre Calgary, Sage Theatre, Downstage, ATP, Lunchbox Theatre, The Shakespeare Company, CYPT, Inside Out Theatre, Jupiter Theatre, One Yellow Rabbit, Chromatic, StoryBook Theatre, Calgary Opera, Guild Hall (Whitehorse), Prairie Theatre Exchange (Winnipeg).
He is a five-time Betty Mitchell Award nominee, winning once for Outstanding Director.
He co-founded the visual performance ensemble 8ROJO with which he has toured as far afield as Mexico, Czechia, Sweden, France, Taiwan, UK, and Iceland. Along with 8ROJO, he was awarded the ‘Innovation in Performance’ award at the 2016 STOFF Festival in Stockholm, Sweden; and he was a finalist for a 2021 Off West End Award in London, UK for Outstanding Production. He has translated the texts ‘100 Love Poems and a Song of Despair’ by Pablo Neruda and Federico García Lorca’s ‘Rural Trilogy’, as well as musical theatre numbers for events with Broadway Cares, 54 Below, Playbill and the Broadway League.
IG: @javidirector
Snizhana Bora is a Ukrainian-Canadian professional actress, theatre and film director, and acting coach based in Calgary.
In Canada, she has worked as an actress with Quest Theatre, Handsome Alice Theatre, Inside Out Theatre, and independent theatre artists across Alberta, continuing her professional performance career while developing original theatrical and film productions.
She graduated from Kharkiv National University of Arts and performed professionally at Kharkiv Academic Drama Theatre (2016–2020). Her international artistic experience includes theatre projects and festivals in Ukraine, Germany, and Poland.
Snizhana is the founder and director of Artis Theatre and the founder of Artis Art Studio in Calgary. With over 16 years of experience in performing arts education, she brings professional stage experience into her teaching, inspiring children and adults to develop creativity, confidence, and authentic artistic expression.
She is a member of the National Union of Theatre Artists of Ukraine.
Christopher “Clip” Clare is an actor, dance artist, and choreographer from Calgary, Alberta. He began his career as a dancer and choreographer and continues to draw on that background in his stage work. Recent theatre credits include, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (Alberta Theatre Projects) The DaVinci Code (Vertigo Theatre), The Orange Dot (Sage Theatre), Selma Burke (Theatre Calgary), Heaven (National Arts Centre, Ottawa), and Frankenstein (Jupiter Theatre). In addition to acting, Christopher continues to work as a dance artist, choreographer, and producer collaborating on projects that bring movement, theatre and film together. Christopher lives and makes art in his home on Treaty 7 territory, Mohkinstsis.
Raffi Minas is a Syrian-Canadian actor, playwright, writer, and mentor. He began his theatre practice in 2006 and has worked across Syria, Lebanon, and Canada. His practice spans performance, playwriting, and Forum Theatre, with a focus on social change and supporting communities affected by trauma.
He is a member of PEN Canada and the Playwrights Guild of Canada. He is the author of two books in Arabic: a short story collection (2022) and a collaborative novel (2024), with a third forthcoming. He is also co-writing a research-based short film about artist refugees in Europe. His story “The Home That Crossed the Ocean” was longlisted for the 2025 CBC Nonfiction Prize.
Valerie is an award-winning actor, director, and arts educator with close to 40 years’ experience on Stage and in Film and Television. She has an MFA from the University of Alberta where she explored the neurobiology of Presence.
She is a member of CAEA, the ACTRA, the AACE, and the Canadian Guild of Stage Directors and Choreographers.
Donna stage manages across artistic disciplines: theatre, opera, dance, musical theatre, music performance, and new performance creation. She also teaches Stage Management and mentors at the University of Calgary. Favourite selected credits include WildWoman, The Seafarer, Teenage Dick (Alberta Theatre Projects), Deadly Murder (Vertigo), The Green Line (Downstage), BISQC (Banff Centre), La Traviata, Jacqueline, The Marriage of Figaro (Opera Kelowna), Moby Dick, Die Tote Stadt, Dead Man Walking, and Silent Night (Calgary Opera), Cinderella (Rainbow Stage), Ghost Opera (The Old Trout Puppet Workshop), and Every Brilliant Thing (Verb Theatre). Donna is looking forward to working again with Theatre Calgary this year as their “Just in Case” Stage Manager for A Christmas Carol, then it’s off to Pacific Opera Victoria in the spring for The Magic Flute.