David Mesiha is a, Toronto and Vancouver based, award-winning music composer, interactive designer, sound/video designer and co-artistic director of Theatre Conspiracy in Vancouver. David’s practice centres around examining questions of form in interactive and performance arts. He is intrigued by the relationships between form and medium. His work utilizes multi channel immersive audio, interactive design and Digital Performance.

He has worked on shows such as Project (X) by Leaky Heaven, Terminus by Pi Theatre, Foreign Radical by Theatre Conspiracy, and You Should Have Stayed Home by Spiderweb Show. He has been nominated and won Jessie Richardson Awards in multiple categories and has received a Dora award nomination for his sound design work on Oraltorio by IFT theatre.

David’s music has spans multiple mediums and formats such as video games, film, theatre and interactive media. David’s Same Difference by Theatre Conspiracy [An immersive performance installation] premiered in Vancouver in April 2022 and will be presented at The Theatre Center in Toronto Winter 2023. David is currently working with Milton Lim and Patrick Blenkarn on asses.masses, a video game performance and with Adelheid and Heidi Strauss on You Are Swimming Here, an AR mixed-Media piece.

Chosen credits: Theatre: Sound designer for The Humans (Arts Club Theatre), Antigone (YPT), Sound of the Beast (Theatre Passe Muraille), You Should Have Stayed Home (VR Performance, SpiderWebShow), asses.masses (video game performance), 15 Dogs (Crow’s Theatre) and Szepty (Rumble/Pi Theatre).

Film & tV:+-40, Spirit Glitch, The Mission, Toward You, The Deluge.

www.davidmesiha.com

Contact David Mesiha at davidmesiha@conspiracy.ca

Gavan Cheema is a director, writer, producer, dramaturg and co-Artistic Director of Theatre Conspiracy. She is based out of Vancouver: the traditional, unceded, and occupied territories of the Coast Salish peoples of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. She is a first generation Canadian, with roots coming from the five rivers of Punjab. She is a recent recipient of the Sam Payne Award for Most Promising Emerging Artist at the Jessie Richardson Awards.

Gavan’s play Himmat premiered in Vancouver at The Cultch in May 2022 and will be presented at the Surrey Civic Theatres in Spring 2024. She holds a double major from the University of British Columbia in Theatre and History, as well as a high school teaching certification. She has created work and directed for various local, national and international stages and has extensive experience in youth engagement, theatre education and workshop facilitation.

Select directing credits: Conspiracy Now (Theatre Conspiracy), Rishi & d Douen (Carousel Theatre), Danceboy (Tremors Festival/ Vancouver Art Gallery Fuse), Burqa Boutique (Revolver Festival), Marie’s Letters (Shift Festival), da’ kink in my hair and You Used to Call Me Marie (Envision Festival), The [Organization] (Unladylike co.), Disgraced (UBC Players Club). Assistant direction: Clean/Espejos (Neworld), Foreign Radical (UK tour), The Orchard [after Chekhov] (Arts Club), Victim Impact (Theatre Conspiracy), Men in White (Arts Club) and Bombay Black (Vancouver Fringe Festival). Select dramaturgy credits: Same Difference by David Mesiha, Isolation Suite by Tim Carlson, Danceboy by Munish Sharma. Upcoming directing: Catfished (May 2023, Alley Theatre), The Dynamics (Oct 2024, Theatre Conspiracy), SWIM (Feb 2025, Theatre Conspiracy & Pandemic Theatre).

Contact Gavan Cheema gavan.cheema@conspiracy.ca

Tim Carlson is a playwright, songwriter, journalist who co-founded Theatre Conspiracy and served as artistic producer from 2008 to 2022. He led the creation of Foreign Radical, which won the 2015 Jessie Award Critics Choice Innovation prize and a 2017 Edinburgh Fringe First Award. The script was recently published in Canadian Theatre Review. Most recent show is the podcast series, Isolation Suite, and he is currently writing The Dynamics, set to premiere in the 2024/’25 season.

Carlson’s documentary play, Victim Impact, premiered at The Cultch in Vancouver in June 2018. He also co-created, wrote the music for, and performed in Tanya Marquardt’s Stray, seen at The Tank in New York and SummerWorks in Toronto in 2018, as well as Vancouver in 2019. He was researcher/ interviewer for Berlin-based Rimini Protokoll’s latest show, Top Secret International, seen at the 2017 Under the Radar Festival in New York as well as researcher/ dramaturg for Best Before (Rimini Protokoll, @ PuSh 2010) and 100% Vancouver (Rimini Protokoll / Theatre Replacement, @ PuSh 2011).

The 2013 show Extraction, won the Rio Tinto Alcan Award, Canada’s largest prize for new play development. His play Omniscience (Talonbooks, 2007) was produced in Vancouver, Berlin, Lisbon and Chicago. He founded Club PuSh with the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival in Vancouver and served as co-curator along with Veda Hille and Norman Armour from 2009 to 2016.

As a journalist, he worked on staff at the Halifax Daily News, Vancouver Sun and Georgia Straight. He holds an English degree from University of Regina, a journalism degree from University of King’s College, Halifax, and a MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia.

Contact Tim Carlson at carlson@conspiracy.ca

Milton Lim (he/him) is a digital media artist, game designer, and performance creator based in Vancouver, Canada: the traditional, unceded, and occupied territories of the Coast Salish peoples of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.

His research-based practice entwines publicly available data, interactive digital media, and gameful performance to create speculative visions and candid articulations of social capital. This line of inquiry aims to reconsider our repertoires of knowledge aggregation and political intervention in the contemporary context of big data and algorithmic culture. Often cheeky and audience/participant driven, his work challenges standard performance traditions including duration, linearity, and repeatability. Milton holds a BFA (Hons.) in theatre performance and psychology from Simon Fraser University.

He has created works for and performed in various international festivals and venues including PuSh International Performing Arts Festival (Vancouver), CanAsian Dance Festival (Toronto), Carrefour international de théâtre festival (Quebec City), IMPACT Festival (Kitchener), Seattle International Dance Festival, Risk/Reward Festival (Portland), Festival Internacional de Buenos Aires, artsdepot (London), Battersea Arts Centre (London), New Theatre Royal (Portsmouth), Strike a Light Festival (Gloucester), Hong Kong Arts Festival, soft/WALL/studs (Singapore), and Darwin Festival.

Performance credits include The Arts Club’s The Great Leap, Gateway Theatre’s King of the Yees at Canada's National Arts Centre, and Theatre Conspiracy’s award-winning immersive show: Foreign Radical at CanadaHub (Edinburgh Fringe). Milton's media artworks have been presented at the Vancouver Art Gallery, San Francisco State University, F-O-R-M, VIVO Media Arts Centre, and The New Gallery. In 2016, he was awarded the Ray Michal Prize for Outstanding Body of Work at the Jessie Richardson Theatre Awards.

He is a co-artistic director of Hong Kong Exile, an artistic associate with Theatre Conspiracy, a co-founder and key archivist with the videocan national archive, an infrequent Sessional Instructor with Simon Fraser University’s School for the Contemporary Arts, one of the co-creators behind culturecapital: the performing arts economy trading card game, and a founding member of Synectic Assembly—an Artificial Intelligence focused art collective. Some of his closest collaborators are: Patrick Blenkarn, Laurel Green, and David Mesiha.

Upcoming: this October, Milton begins an 18-month Artistic Leadership Residency with the National Theatre School (Canada); his work on (asses.masses) recently received the prestigious National Creation Fund and is set for a premiere in Buenos Aires in February 2023; along with Patrick Blenkarn, he will be doing a self-directed residency in South America (January-April 2023) as well as continued work with Darren O’Donnell, Alice Fleming, and a dedicated group of young people at the Humboldt Forum in Berlin over the next few years.

Erin Purghart is an interdisciplinary artist based in Lower Mainland, BC. Erin graduated with BFA in Acting in 2021 and since graduating has worked predominantly as an actor, comedian and producer, and is also a trained singer and dancer.

Erin does acting work in both film and theatre with a specialization in commedia dell’arte. Recent acting credits include: Heart of Gold (Noema Productions), Amphitruo (United Players), JUGGLE ME NOT (Axis Theatre Company).

As a comedian, Erin does both stand-up and improv comedy, and hosts (as well as produces) their own comedy show That’s gay! comedy. Recent comedy credits include: That’s gay! comedy, QueerProv, & Tightrope Impro Theatre.

When they’re not onstage, Erin spends their time directing, teaching and marketing. As well as working being Theatre Conspiracy’s marketing coordinator, Erin is behind much of the performing arts marketing around the city. Recent marketing credits include: That’s gay! comedy, QueerProv, Aphotic Theatre, ITSAZOO Productions & Axis Theatre Company.

You can catch Erin ONSTAGE in Greenthumb Theatre’s upcoming production For Now by Scott Button this spring!

Contact Erin Purghart at marketing@conspiracy.ca