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The Company

Escape Artists is an international collaborative theatre company formed in 2011 by Jane Bergeron and Carrie Ann Quinn.

 

ARTISTS BIOGRAPHIES

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Jane Bergeron is a professional actor, director and theatre-maker and co-artistic director of New York-based international theatre company, Escape Artists. US and UK theatre credits in over 40 productions include such favourite roles as Eliza in My Fair Lady, Maggie in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Viola in Twelfth Night. In 2010, she originated the role of Anne Askew in On the Borderline at The Bloomsbury Theatre in London’s off-West End. From 1992-2002 she served as artistic director of Vintage Repertory Company in Portland, Maine. As theatre-in-residence at the Oak Street Theater from 1994-97, Vintage Rep staged over 20 critically-acclaimed productions of modern and contemporary American and European plays, two of which were US premieres, along with original stage adaptations of works by Shakespeare, Chekov and Dylan Thomas. Since 2006, creative research interests have revolved around developing ensemble-devised performance work that explores issues related to living in our contemporary world. With Carrie Ann Quinn, she co-wrote, devised and performed the original play Possessions, based on the published memoirs of two extraordinary 17th century noblewomen who escaped their arranged marriages to live a dangerous life on the road. Possessions had its US debut in 2013 at Boston Playwrights Theatre, and premiered internationally in 2014 in Sydney, Australia. Recent performance work includes Richard III in Margaret of Anjou (Studio 1, UNSW, 2016); the Duchess of Worcester in SuperHal, a reimagining of Shakespeare’s Henry IV & V (NIDA Parade Theatre, 2017); Dorothy Sayers in Speak Easy (Sydney Fringe Festival, 2019); and various characters in Ms Middle (International Women’s Day, 2020).  Jane holds a BA/B.Ed from London University in her native England and a MFA in Theatre Education from Boston University in the US. Since 2006 she has served as head of the Theatre Studies program at the University of Notre Dame Australia in Sydney, where she teaches courses in theory and practice of acting, directing, Shakespeare studies and playwriting, and directs annual productions of devised and text-based theatre. She is the 2012 recipient of the Notre Dame Vice Chancellor’s Award for Initiatives that Enhance Student Learning, as well as a 2014 Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning awarded by the Australian Government's Office of Learning & Teaching. She has conducted numerous master classes internationally for both student and professional actors, as well as theatre making workshops for drama teachers at seminars and conferences both in Sydney and abroad. For the past few years she has been exploring the value of improvisational theatre processes to enhance inter-personal skills across a variety of professions through her interactive workshop Acting Collaboratively. Currently, she is engaged in developing a series of theatre games that aim to improve mood and cognition in residents in aged care.

Carrie Ann Quinn is a professional actor, director, producer/writer and professor who divides her time between Boston and New York City. As a playwright and producer, she has developed numerous plays and scripts based on historical research, with emphasis in feminist history. She has received two Healey Grants, a Boston Playwrights’ Blackbox Fellowship, a KoFest Guest Artist Residency and Coyote Arts Festival Residency; A co-founder of the international theatre co, Escape Artists, Quinn co-wrote, dramaturged, devised, and performed in Possessions, a play based on the 17th c Mancini Sisters, which premiered internationally in Sydney, Australia (US premiere at Boston Playwrights’ Theatre) which received rave reviews in the Sydney papers. The play is currently being adapted into a pilot and television series. Quinn's latest script project, Wild Women, is based on true women from the wild west during the gold rush. NYC theatre credits: The Tank; Clurman Theatre; CSV Flamboyan; New Ohio Theatre; Strasberg Theatre. Regional: American Repertory Theater; Gloucester Stage; Huntington BU Theatre, Studio 210; Boston Playwrights’ Theatre; Chopin Theatre; Warehouse Theatre; Center Stage SC; Whitmore-Lindley Theatre; Theatre Unlimited; Celebration Theatre. TV/Film Actor: Julia (HBO) Defending Jacob, Chappaquiddick, The Fighter, Company Men, Fame LA, Standing By, and numerous independent films. Quinn directed the critically acclaimed Sci-fi Short Film, Launch at Paradise, which premiered in 2022 in over a dozen International Film Festivals. As a professor, Quinn presents A Method for a New Millennium Acting Technique throughout the US and internationally in Europe and Australia, most recently at IUGTE in Liebnitz, Austria and University Notre Dame Australia, in Sydney. In 2019 and 2017 she received the Kennedy Center & National Partners of American Theatre (NAPAT) Classical Acting Mentor Award (Northeast Region) presented at the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival. Three of her UMB acting students won the National Irene Ryan Acting Scholarship Awards for the Northeast Region for 2017 and 2018 and 2022, the highest honor in the student acting awards from the Kennedy Center, and in 2017 and 2019 her UMB acting students won the Best Classical Acting Scene Award. MFA, Theatre Ed in Acting & Teaching Fellowship, Boston University School of Theatre; BFA, Drama (Honors) – New York University Tisch School of the Arts, Founder's Day Scholar & Paulette Goddard Scholar, double-major Politics and minor, Women's Studies. She is a proud member of Actors’ Equity Association (AEA), Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA) and Associate Member of Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC). Website: https://www.carrieannquinn.com

Carrie Ann Quinn

Jane Bergeron

Bergeron

As Anne Askew in On the Borderline

 

Quinn

As Lady Chiltern in An Ideal Husband

 

Bergeron

As Agafya in Marriage

Quinn

As Twink in Christmas Belles

Quinn & Bergeron

Traveling actresses while rehearsing Possessions in NYC

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