THE TEAM
Matthew MacKenzie – Artistic Director
Matthew MacKenzie is a citizen of the Métis Nation of Alberta and proud father of Ivan (Eevan, Vanya, Vanichka). Artistic Director of Punctuate! Theatre, Matthew is also the founder and an Artistic Associate with Pyretic Productions, a founding member of the Pemmican Collective, as well as Canadian Liaison of the Liberian Dance Troupe. Matt’s plays include First Métis Man of Odesa, Bears, After the Fire and The Particulars.
Sheiny Satanove - Managing Director
Sheiny is a proud founding member of Punctuate! Theatre and has been producing with the company since 2010. She is also a freelance theatre producer, and a producer and coordinator in the film industry.
Lianna Makuch - Producer
Lianna Makuch is a second generation Ukrainian Canadian theatre artist. She is as an actor, creator, instructor, and is an Artistic Producer with Pyretic Productions. Lianna has managed outreach and communications for several arts organizations, and is a co-founder and creation instructor at Spark! Youth Camp, which provides affordable arts education to youth in Edmonton’s Alberta Avenue Community. She is the playwright and principal performer in Barvinok (Pyretic Productions/Punctuate! Theatre), which was nominated for four Elizabeth Sterling Haynes Awards including Outstanding New Play and Outstanding Production, won the ACUA-URDC Award (2018), and was most recently honoured with a Leadership Award from both the National and Provincial level Ukrainian Canadian Congresses. Lianna is a graduate of the BFA Acting Program at the University of Alberta.
Trent Crosby - Production Manager
Trent is an Edmonton based artist and arts enabler with a specialty in activating non-traditional performance spaces. A graduate of Grant MacEwan's Theatre Production program and The Banff Centre for the Arts, Trent has spent the last 10 years as a Lighting Designer, Production Manager, Technical Director, Entertainment Programmer, Site Manager, and Theatre Technician.
Alyson Dicey - Producer
Alyson Dicey is an Edmonton based producer/artist and graduate of the BFA Acting class of 2012 at the University of Alberta. She is a founding member of Girl Brain Sketch Comedy and is proud to write and perform with a troupe that celebrates and promotes the strength of women. Alyson is also an artistic associate of the Edmonton immersive theatre company, Thou Art Here Theatre and volunteer coordinator for SkirtsAFire Festival. During the summers, Alyson can be found at the Edmonton International Fringe Festival in her role as KidsFringe Coordinator. Alyson believes strongly in encouraging young women to take on leadership roles, set and achieve goals, and develop confidence in their voices and abilities.
Andy Cohen - Producer
Andy has been in the arts and entertainment sector for two decades, working on stages and in stadiums across the country and as far away as Brazil, Turkmenistan, Australia, Ukraine, Czech Republic, UAE, Netherlands, Philippines, France, and Mexico. He has worked on major events like the Rio 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Opening and Closing Ceremonies, Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games Opening Ceremonies, 2018 Invictus Games & Commonwealth Games Opening and Closing Ceremonies, and the international 2023 Beach Volleyball World Championships. He was responsible for the Sitewide Programming at Expo 2020 Dubai and oversaw 35,000 performances across the six-month event. He has a SAT Award, a Jessie nomination, and a BFA from UBC. Andy is excited to work with Punctuate! and to help bring necessary, relevant, boundary-pushing stories to audiences across this country and abroad.
Catalina Diaz - International Producer
Catalina has a degree in Arts and Humanities. She is a cultural manager and performing arts producer in Santiago, Chile. She currently works as a producer and education coordinator at Teatro Ictus, the oldest theater company in Latin America, as well as in different theater projects linked to the rescue of memory in Chilean territory.
Christine Sokaymoh Frederick - Artistic Associate
Christine has been the Executive Director of the Annual Dreamspeakers Film Festival since 2016. She is an urban Aboriginal Cree-Métis and has thirty-five years of performance experience, as a dancer, musician, media artist, writer, producer and actor. She currently sits on the board of directors for the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra/Winspear Centre and the Edmonton Indigenous Public Art Park steering committee. She is the recipient of the 2007 Esquao Award in Arts and the 2016 Mayor’s Award for Excellence in Artistic Leadership. Former board member and chair of the Edmonton Arts Council, Christine is now the newly appointed Vice Chair of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts.
Danielle LaRose - Producer
Danielle LaRose is a theatre-maker and storyteller of Métis and Mennonite heritage living in amiskwâcîwaskahikan. She is a citizen of the Métis Nation of Alberta and a guest on Treaty Six Territory/Métis Region 4 where she works as a playwright, performer, director, composer, and teacher. Danielle trained at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and is a core company member of Malachite Theatre as well as the founder of Edmonton’s woman-centred classical theatre company The Tiger’s Hearts Collective. While most of her work is as a creator, Danielle is thrilled to be supporting other artists on their own creative journeys as an associate producer with the Punctuate! Theatre and Pemmican Collective Creators’ Cohort.
Sheldon Elter - Artistic Associate
Sheldon is a Métis actor, writer, stand-up comic, musician and director originally from Northern Alberta. His credits include Evangeline (Citadel Theatre/Charlotte Town Festival), Crazy For You, Alice Through The Looking Glass, One Man Two Guvnors, Julius Caesar, A Prairie Boy’s Winter and Vimy (Citadel Theatre), BEARS (Pyretic Productions), The Crackwalker (Kill Your Television), Tartuffe, Sound of L’Homme de la Mancha (L’Unithéâtre), HROSES: An Affront to Reason (Maggie Tree), NEVERMORE (Catalyst Theatre), HAIR The Musical, Shear Madness, The 25th Annual Putnam Spelling Bee, The Buddy Holly Story and The Full Monty (Mayfield Dinner Theatre). TV credits: Hank Williams’ First Nation (APTN), Hell On Wheels, (AMC). He is the co-star, writer, and Co-Executive Producer on Delmer and Marta and CAUTION: May Contain Nuts (APTN) He is also a core-member of the ukulele rock band sensation, The Be Arthurs.
Dawn Marie Marchand - Designer in Residence
Dawn Marie Marchand is a member of Cold Lake First Nation in Treaty Six territory. cîpêhcakwawêw-iskwêw (Blue Horse Spirit Woman) is a Cree and Metis artist, educator, advocate, author, writer, speaker, and mother. Her many noted accomplishments include: Circle of Courage Coordinator for the Alberta Indigenous Games in 2011, Co-founder and lead organizer of Cree8 Success Conference in 2012, art installations for the Edmonton Folk Festival in 2013 called “Monto”; Edmonton City Hall in 2014 during the Truth and Reconciliation Gathering “A Place to Hang your Stories”; co-producing the Walrus Talks-Aboriginal City art components in 2015, “Edmonton Treaty 6 Soccer ball”; and Redx Talk “Art is the Medicine” in 2016. Received an Aboriginal Role Model Award for Art in 2017, during her term as the Inaugural Indigenous Artist In Residence for the City of Edmonton. Facilitation of the Indigenous Artist Market Collective engagement and launch in 2018. An installation called “The Longest Journey” as part of the Nuit Blanche Festival in 2018. In mid 2019, she relocated to Smoky Lake, AB where she is working on rebuilding her studio practise. Since then she has created public art in the Stanley Milnar Public Library and had artwork projected in Expo Dubai in 2020. Currently, she is working with Punctuate Theatre, Metis Nation of Alberta and the University of Alberta on various projects.