CAST
BESSE'S
WILL
~Lovin' Shakespeare~
Christina Penhale
Christina was born and raised on Salt Spring Island and grew up on the stage. After walking many different paths in her youth she found her way back to her first love, acting. It was a local production of Shakespeare’s the Tempest, Directed by Libby Mason and Produced by Graffiti Theatre, that brought her back. Christina enrolled at the Canadian College of Performing Arts to further her dream, where she graduated with a scholarship for Outstanding Acting Achievement.
She co-founded and currently operates the local theatre company exitStageLeft Productions with her business partner Jekka Mack, creating large scale Broadway musicals and musical adaptations of Shakespeare on Salt Spring. Over the last number of years she has produced, co-directed/acted in and choreographed numerous productions, RENT, Cabaret, Spring Awakening, Beauty & the Beast and Romeo & Juliet to name a few.
In 2016 she fell in love, playing Tatania to Jeffrey Renn’s Bottom, when they acted together in a production of A Mid-Summer Nights Dream, directed by Chris Humphreys and produced by exitStageLeft. Shakespeare not only brought her back to her first love of acting, it lead her to the love of her life. She is so grateful to have the opportunity to create this piece and experience falling in love again and again.
Jeffrey Renn
Before moving to this faire Isle, Jeffrey was a member of the acting companies at the Shaw and Stratford Festivals and has appeared on Broadway in Moliere’s The Miser and Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. He is an alumnus of the prestigious London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts, where he studied acting and has an MFA in Directing from the University of Victoria.
In 2006 Scott Hylands invited Jeffrey to choreograph the fights for a production of R&J in Mouats Park. As a guest of Suzie and Rob Ruttan at Maracaibo, friends from the early days of Bard on the Beach, Jeffrey was smitten with Salt Spring’s natural charms.
So when Chris Humphreys, also a Bard alum, called offering a Wake for Shakespeare at Artspring, he jumped at the opportunity to come and play in this neck of the woods. Little did he know he was to realize his dream of living on Salt Spring and finding and falling in Love with his Faerie Queen. As Sebastian in Twelfth Night says,“If it be thus to dream, still let me sleep.”
Jeffrey continues to live a waking dream, falling in love again and again with Christina, the leading lady of his life. He is more than proud of the work the exitStageLeft family has created together and looks forward more shenanigans in the park summerly.
