2025-26 “Somebody Loves You, Mr. Hatch” Team on Tour
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Somebody Loves You, Mr. Hatch is back, this time we are celebrating a milestone! This year marks the 10th Anniversary Tour of the beloved puppet play. We are thrilled to bring this heart-warming story back to audiences across Canada in 2026!
TEAM ON TOUR
Jeny Cassady Edna / Mr. Hatch
Jeny is a professional puppeteer working in film, television, and theatre since 2001. Involved with Axis Theatre’s 4-time award-winning Somebody Loves You, Mr.Hatch since 2015, she is thrilled to once again be telling this heartfelt story. She’s received Jessie Richardson awards for Arts Club’s Avenue Q, and Hand To God, and received a nomination for Outstanding Ensemble Performance for Somebody Loves You, Mr.Hatch. Jeny is also a founding member of the Vancouver International Puppet Festival, where she has enjoyed promoting new local puppet projects, and growing the puppet community in Vancouver.
Tara Travis Edna / Mr. Hatch / Molly
Tara is a Vancouver based voice artist-actor-writer-puppeteer-creative human known for her prowess as a solo performer, her physical shape-shifting abilities and vocal acrobatics. Throughout her career, she has co-created and performed in over 30 original plays, most recently the epic dark comedy The SpinstersSelect solo works include Erika The Red, Who Killed Gertrude Crump? (nominated for 4 Jessie Richardson Theatre Awards, including Best Actor, Female), Til Death: The Six Wives of Henry VIII, and The Unfortunate Ruth, recipient of the PTC New Play Prize. In 2015, she was co-recipient of a Jessie Richardson Theatre award with Dusty Hagerüd for their innovative design of Monster Theatre’s adaptation of The Little Prince, for which she was also nominated for Best Performance, TYA.
A co-founder of the Vancouver International Puppet Festival, Tara has incorporated animated objects, hand and rod and shadow puppetry into many of her works. Recent credits include multiple elves in “Keeping up with the Klauses”, David in The Washboard Union’s award-winning music video “Country Thunder”, and Joules in an educational series for Fortis BC. She lives to create, and creates to live.
Christine Reinfort Molly / Mr. Goober / Melanie Todd
Christine is extremely grateful to live, work and play on the unceded, ancestral and traditional territories of the Coast Salish Peoples. As a graduate of Studio 58's acting program, she was the recipient of the Jean and Walter Ball Memorial Scholarship. Special thanks to the incredible Axis Theatre team! Selected credits include Age of Arousal (Peninsula Productions), A Few Good Men, In the Next Room, The Country Wife (ETC), A Prayer for Owen Meany (ETC & Pacific Remount), 12 Angry Jurors, Macbeth (SRO), Parade (FCP) and Small Parts (Solo Collective Theatre). Big love to Sean and her family! She hopes you enjoy the show!
Sarah May Redmond Betsy / Mr. Smith / Mr. Todd
Sarah May Redmond is a theatre performer and sometime musician, based in Vancouver, the unceded territory of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh peoples. She has worked with theatre companies from all over BC, spanning from Mortal Coil Performance Society, Touchstone, Ruby Slippers, Bard on the Beach and the Arts Club Theatre in Vancouver, Caravan Farm Theatre near Armstrong, Runaway Moon Theatre in Grindrod, to Theatre NorthWest in her hometown of Prince George. She has done a wide range of touring with Green Thumb, Kaleidoscope, shameless hussy productions and especially Axis Theatre. She is a co-recipient of a Dora Award and a Jessie Award for excellence in ensemble performance. She has also been a co-facilitator with many Community Engaged Arts projects, ranging from online Shadow Puppet presentations during Covid lockdowns with Runaway Moon Theatre and Vancouver Moving Theatre, to working with seniors experiencing dementia in a multi-year project with Deer Crossing the Art Farm on the Sunshine Coast.
Jillian Perry Stage Manager
Jillian has been touring with Axis Theatre since 2018. She is a Jesse Richardson award-winning Artist for Significant Artistic Achievement: Outstanding Stage Management in Theatre for Young Audiences. She holds a BA from the University of the Fraser Valley.
Axis Theatre: Touring Canada, the USA and China with Somebody Loves You, Mr. Hatch; Touring across Saskatchewan with The Troll Grandfather; Touring BC with Th'owxiya: The Hungry Feast Dish and across Canada and the USA with Robinson Crusoe and Friday.
Past job highlights include touring across Canada with 5 seasons of Chelsea Hotel, The Songs of Leonard Cohen, Only Drunks and Children Tell the Truth, Dead Metaphor, Proud, Urinetown: The Musical, Circle Game (Firehall Arts Centre and Tour with Arts Club). Terminus and Visions of Vancouver (Pi Theatre) Elbow Room Café (Zee Zee Theatre, The Cultch), 5@50 (Zee Zee Theatre, Ruby Slippers), My Funny Valentine, Nelly Boy and Whale Riding Weather (Zee Zee Theatre).
CREATIVE TEAM
Read the creative team bios here.
Book by Eileen Spinelli
Illustrated by Paul Yalowitz
Adapted & Directed by Chris McGregor
Puppet Designed and Crafted by Frank Rader
Puppet Wardrobe by Barbara Clayden
Performer Dresses by Darryl Milot
Sound Design Composition by Stephen Bulat
Set Design by Shizuka Kai
