YYC Arts and Community Engagement Coordinator

Brianna is a musician, actor, musical director, photographer, and an arts educator. She grew up on the Coast of BC and worked towards a jazz performance degree at Vancouver Island University. She has musically directed and accompanied over 20 theatre productions on both Vancouver Island and Toronto. Brianna has been teaching group and private classes in musical theatre, voice, and piano for 16 years and believes that you are your instrument. Brianna is passionate about arts education and when she is not educating, she is pursuing her other passion: photography and videography.

YEG Arts and Community Engagement Coordinator

Derek is an artist and educator based in amiskwacîwâskahikan/Edmonton, Alberta. He holds a Fine Arts degree from the Alberta University of the Arts with a major in painting and a Secondary Education degree from the University of Alberta with an art major. With experience as a schoolteacher and a working artist, it has allowed Derek to bring thought-provoking and curriculum-based arts programming to the Jube. Derek’s current body of work is based in the medium of stained glass that he creates out of his home studio.

YYC Arts Education Facilitator

Keshia is a Caribbean-Canadian theatre creator, performer, and educator based in Mohkinstsis (Calgary, AB). She is passionate about experiencing, creating, and supporting art by diverse and marginalised communities, as well as uplifting children and youth through the power of theatre performance and creation. In 2021, Keshia’s play, Special, was featured in Obsidian Theatre (Toronto) and CBC Gem's 21 Black Futures, which won a 2022 Canadian Screen award for best web series. Keshia also co-created and performed the play, The F Word, that had its world premiere with Downstage, presented by Alberta Theatre Projects, in association with Handsome Alice and Theatre Calgary.

YYC Arts Education Facilitator

Conrad is a non-binary, hard-of-hearing award-winning queer theatre actor, director and playwright. In Calgary they’ve worked with Theatre Calgary, Ghost River Theatre, the High Performance Rodeo, Alberta Theatre Projects, Lunchbox Theatre, Stage West, Inside Out Theatre, Vertigo Theatre and many other predominant organizations. They are the creator and performer of the Instagram Livestream phenomenon MONO MAN MIA, for which they won Broadway World’s “Vocalist of the Decade”. They are the Theatre Arts Director of Youth Singer of Calgary and are thrilled to be an Arts Education Facilitator with Jube School! A fun fact about Conrad is that during Stampede Week, they can be seen traipsing around the stampede grounds as the BMO Bear mascot!

YYC Arts Education Facilitator

Christopher Duthie is an actor, playwright, screenwriter, producer, and educator. He has been acting for over 15 years in theatre, radio, and, more recently, Film/TV. His plays include n00b, which toured across Canada from 2010-2014, and A Dinner Party, which was shortlisted for the Gwen Pharis Ringwood Award for Drama in 2020. Recently, he wrote and starred in Road West Pictures’s short film Bladder Shy, which is currently touring national and international film festivals. As an educator, he works with Evergreen Theatre, Quest Theatre, Think Fast/Pense Vite, Theatre Calgary, and Calgary Young People’s Theatre, as well as leading self-directed playwriting workshops with CBE High Schools. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph and a BFA in Drama from the University of Calgary. 

YYC Arts Education Facilitator

Alexa is a Calgary-based actor, dancer, singer, musician, choreographer, and clown. Some performance highlights include, Escape to Margaritaville, The Louder We Get, As You Like It (Theatre Calgary), Snow Angel (Quest Theatre), The Wicked Witch of the Wetlands (Evergreen Theatre), Girls Like That (New West Theatre), and Carrie: The Musical (University of Lethbridge). Alexa is no stranger to the joy and magic the arts can bring to young people, having worked as dance teacher for more than a decade, and as an theatre arts educator and touring actor with Evergreen Theatre, Quest Theatre, and Calgary Actors’ Studio over the last seven years. She is ecstatic to be working her second year as a part of the Arts Education team at Jube School!

YEG Arts Education Facilitator

Melanie is a Joy + Freedom Facilitator who supports children and families align with their inner joy so they can live harmoniously together. Having two children of her own and being a co-parent, she understands the complexities that come with various family dynamics. She adores children and often, her childlike freedom to be, is what supports her in connecting with children so easily.

She helps families and children understand themselves better so they can walk their sacred dreams of life with courage and confidence. She supports them in identifying their hidden talents with confidence so they can be shared out into the world. Seeing the joy in children and parents' eyes when they are in their joy zone is what she lives for!

Melanie's mission in life is to be part of the positive change in the world and help illuminate that our differences are not our weakness, rather, our superpower!

YEG Arts Education Facilitator

April Banigan is a theatre artist and Arts Educator. She’s been performing in theatre and film/TV for over 30 years. A few of her favorite theatre credits include Citadel Theatre’s A Christmas Carol, Death of a Salesman and the North American Premiere of Peter Pan Goes Wrong. Her film/TV credits include Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Street Justice and Media Sense, and the feature film, A Louder Silence. She also voices video game characters in the Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age and Neverwinter Nights. Another of her favorite projects was directing the v/o narration of the CBC TV series’ The Perfect Runner, The Great Human Odyssey, and Equus; story of the horse.

As an Arts Educator she has worked with students throughout Alberta with Concrete Theatre’s Artist-in-School program, and is a long time drama instructor at Foote Theatre School. She is a big fan of Arts Education and has seen the transformative effect is has on students of every age!