From Page to Stage.
Spenser Kells is an actor, writer, and musician who recently graduated with their BFA in acting from the University of Alberta. Spenser just finished a run of their play Sheep Play at the 2024 Edmonton Fringe Theatre Festival after workshopping the script they started nearly two years earlier at our Springboards Festival last season!
Check out what Spenser has to say about their process and the benefit of having professional support.
Photo of Sheep Play by Morris Nguyen
You can catch Spenser on stage this fall in The Witch, directed by Alissa Watson at the Bleviss Laboratory Theatre, Brother Rat, directed by Erik Richards as part of the Fringe season or playing with their punk band, Best in Show.
“It’s hard to imagine what the show might have been had the play not gotten workshopped at the Springboards Festival. At Workshop West Playwrights’ Theatre, with the direct help of Darrin Hagen and the support of the rest of the team, I feel as though I was able to actually finish writing Sheep Play, a script I had started writing almost two years earlier. I was lucky enough to get a Fringe Lottery venue and put up the show, and as I sat backstage every night, I felt almost as though I was watching myself grow, reliving the journey that it had taken to get there.
“Being able to speak with professional writers was integral to that process, as it really helped me hone my instincts as a writer, to know when it was the right time to change or add things and to be more confident in the work. As a young writer and artist, having a professional really look at your work and treat it as a work is extremely validating and fulfilling, because it gave me permission to see it as a work as well.
“It wasn’t just a silly little project. This is real. This is my art. I am so grateful to be able to share that art, and to keep learning about myself, and the world. I am hungry to create more, and I am so proud of that hunger.
Thanks,
Spenser Kells”
