It’s only the first week of March and already 2016 is shaping up to be a great year for many School of Creative and Performing Arts alumni.
Acting for Film and Television graduate Hannah Hogan is currently starring in the web series Friends with Benefits. The first four episodes are available to stream for free via Funny or Die.
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Steph Tolev, an alumna of the Comedy Writing and Performance program, released her first comedy album, Hot N’ Hungry, to rave a review from Exclaim! (“While many comedians struggle with making a live, intimate performance translate to strictly audio recordings, Tolev's material clears that hurdle effortlessly.”) It’s no surprise the album shot to the top of the iTunes comedy chart!
Fellow Comedy grad K. Trevor Wilson, on the other hand, returned to his first love: acting. Though he’s more widely known for his work as a stand-up comedian, Wilson is now a series regular on Letterkenny, CraveTV’s first original scripted sitcom. Read more about Wilson’s journey from Humber to small screen comedy.
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Drummer Anthony Fung, an alumnus of Humber’s K-12 Community Music School, will be part of the 2018 cohort of the prestigious Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz in Los Angeles. A previous Berklee College of Music scholarship recipient, Fung is the first Canadian accepted to the Institute.
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It’s awards season in the music industry, and graduates of Humber’s Bachelor of Music and Jazz Performance Certificate programs are getting noticed! Drummer Ricky Lewis—brother of Humber faculty member, drummer Larnell Lewis—recently played the industry’s biggest stages, the Grammy Awards and the Brit Awards, with Scarborough’s The Weeknd (“Can’t Feel My Face,” “Earned It”). See their Brit Awards performance here.
Closer to home, a number of grads were nominated for 2016 JUNO awards or played on JUNO-nominated recordings. Lauded alumni include Allison Au, Emilie-Claire Barlow, Julian Anderson-Bowes (with Tara Kannangara), Laila Biali (with Tara Davidson), Joel Cassady (with Walk Off The Earth), Feurd (a.k.a. Ian Robertson Moore, with The Elwins), Shamus Currie (with The Sheepdogs), and Emily Ferrell, Nathan Dell-Vandenberg and Chris Weatherstone (all with Lemon Bucket Orkestra).
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Humber Theatre Performance grads continue to blaze trails across stage, film and arts management. Recent graduate Yolanda Bonnell juggles a staff administrative position at Native Earth Performing Arts with directing and acting opportunities. She will direct Plum BOMB, written by current student Bilal Baig, at the upcoming Paprika Festival, and she'll follow her recent Rhubarb Festival appearance in bug with a star turn at Factory Theatre in Judith Thompson's The Crackwalker, co-starring fellow Theatre Performance grad and lauded actor-playwright Waawaate Fobister.
Since leaving Humber, Jesse Ryder Hughes has built a career as an actor-producer-director and the co-founder of Unit 102 Theatre Studio & Actors Co., a Parkdale performance space and acting company. The company concluded a successful production of Red Light Winter in January, and plans to mount Of Mice and Men later this year.
Alumna Yulia Petrauskas’ latest foray into film is the feature End of Days, Inc, which opened at the Carlton Cinema on February 19, and Nawa Nicole Simon, a past Dora Award nominee, finishes her run in a new play, Just for A Moment, on March 6.
