May Jasper (Co Founder)
May Jasper founded SNAFU Theatre with Sam Wilson in 2002, whilst
undertaking a Bachelor of Creative Arts at Melbourne University. She
has been producer for four of SNAFU's previous productions, three of
which she wrote, Love, Coincidence (2002), Death's Variety Hour (2005) and Month of Sundays (2007), and the fourth The Beginning of the End (2008), a devised piece for which she was script editor. May has written one other play, Speaking, which was shortlisted for the MUDFest script contest in 2003 and produced by La Mama in September 2009. She is currently working on a one woman show.
Sam Wilson (Co Founder)
Sam Wilson founded SNAFU Theatre with May Jasper in 2002, whilst
undertaking a Bachelor of Creative Arts (hons) at Melbourne University. The Dead Air was the fifth production Sam directed for SNAFU, and the
first that she co-wrote. Other productions directed by Sam
include Love, Coincidence (2002) and the Melbourne Fringe Festival seasons of Death's Variety Hour (2005), Month of Sundays (2007) and The Beginning of the End
(2008), which she devised with the cast. She scores reviews for various publications including Arts Hub, writes for the Beat magazine Arts section and on occasion writes poetry, having been published in fourWtwenty and the University of Newcastle's Mascara Literary Review.
Felicity Hopkins (Performer)
Seasoned on the stages and festival fields of Australia's East Coast, Felicity is now based in the UK. With a BA in CreativeArts (Griffith Uni QLD), Felicity has three SNAFU productions under her belt and is heartily looking forward to her 4th.
Previous SNAFU roles have seen her deadly serious in The Dead Air (2009); Gender and generation bending in The Beginning
of the End (2008); And with s queer jaunt in A Month of Sundays (2007). Other career highlights include working with Legs
On The Wall, ATYP, Zen Zen Zo, Woodford Theatre Co., Neil Cameron, Cake Productions & Yumi Umimare.
Felicity will appear in SNAFU's Edinburgh Fringe Festival version of Murder at Warrabah House in August 2011. Hoorah!
Cail Young (Lighting/Sound Design)
Cail Young is a theatrical sound designer with a broad and eclectic body of work - from musical theatre (Footloose, Into The Woods) to experimental physical theatre (Absolute Necessity, 2006; The Simple Life, 2007) to comedy revues (Deakin University 2005-2008). Cail is also an accomplished live sound engineer, having mixed for live events of all kinds since 2003. He has been the lighting designer for three of SNAFU's previous productions (Month of Sundays, 2007; The Beginning Of The End, 2008; The Dead Air, 2009), and just finished a stint in the electrics department on Wicked (2008-2009).
Hannah Cuthbertson (Costume Design)
Hannah Cuthbertson, whilst not being new to theatre, only began her costuming career last year. She completed a diploma of small companies and community theatre at the University of Ballarat in 2004, and since then has worked in various theatre companies as an actor. She first worked in costume design in 2008, both with SNAFU's The Beginning of the End and Sample Theatre's Hitlerhoff for the Melbourne Fringe Festival. Since then she has worked with Sample again in Genesis: Re-Created and with SNAFU for The Dead Air and Saturday Afternoon Soap Opera. She has recently completed a training internship with Platform Youth Theatre in their costume department, culminating in Wes Snelling's performance of Enough in April this year.
Samantha Hill (Performer)
Samantha Hill is an actor, writer and the artistic director of Raw Sugar Theatre. In 2002 she completed a Bachelor of
Creative Arts through the University of Melbourne/VCA and then went on to pursue an Advanced Diploma of Professional
Screenwriting at RMIT. Samantha has studied acting with NIDA (summer schools), and has performed in several films, with
Moreland Theatre Company, and with SNAFU three times. Her scripts have been produced in Short and Sweet Melbourne and
Sydney, by Rumble Theatre Company and within the RMIT Snatches program. In 2008 Samantha received a grant to produce
a rehearsed reading of her surreal Australian Outback play Electric Fence. She is currently starring in trasharama film
Hanging at Picnic Rock, writing for St. Martins Youth Theatre and ATYP (Sydney) and attempting to absorb as much theatre as
possible.
Kate McCarthy (Production/Performer)
Kate came to SNAFU sideways, starting off as wardrobe mistress in Death's Variety Hour, moving on to Assistant Director for Month of Sundays, and playing the no nonsense Aggie Hancock in The Beginning of the End, before returning to the role of Assistant Director for The Dead Air. Her jack of all trades approach to the theatre company has been invaluable. She has just completed a Bachelor of Arts (Hons.) at LaTrobe University, and hopes to expand her expertise in SNAFU in the future. She also writes short stories. Good ones.
Nicholas Kaschke (Performer)
After successfully completing his degree in Theatre Performance at the University of Ballarat, Nic Kaschke has gone on to
perform in various shows throughout Melbourne’s theatre scene. This includes a performance as Lysander in Midsummer
Night’s Dream (2004), Yukatowa Too-tun Devil in Fat Camp (2005) and Cobalt in Write Where it Hurts (2006). He has
performed in several SNAFU projects, including the short film Small Talk (2004), Month of Sundays (2007), and The Beginning
of the End (2008) where he played Corporal William Cuthbert-Price, making all of his friends just that little bit scared of him
afterwards. Nic has also brought his years of experience in musical theatre to the role of assistant director in I Sing (2008).
Jasper Garner Gore (Performer)
Jasper got into acting as soon as he became aware that it would
probably result in less mockery than the ballet classes he was taking.
His first acting job was on the children's television series High Flyers (1999), since then he been in the VCE Season of Excellence, as well as in Commonplace Productions' show Company Shore (2005) and Union House Theatre's production The Fire Raisers (2006). He has done musical theatre, playing Beadle Bamford in Sweeney Todd (2008), and recorded an audio book I, Nigel
for Bolinda Audio. Jasper also has a particular passion for improvised
theatre, he played Romeo in the sell out Mebourne Fringe Season of Death By Chocolate. The Beginning of the End
(2007) and his first role with SNAFU Theatre was Peter Waterman in their devised piece (2008).
Alex Lance (Performer/Graphic Design)
Early one dark London morning in 1981, a brave young woman home-birthed a tiny bastard child, she decided he would be called Alex Lance. They moved to Australia just two years later, and then eventually Melbourne, his home. When Alex was 18 he spent a year doing a VCA foundations course. It changed his life. Then a year studying the Eric Morris technique at Red Stitch, and soon after that studied Meisner with the Australian Centre Of Performing Arts. The last 10 years of his life have been spent acting in plays and short films all over Melbourne for various theatre companies. He is co-founder of a new theatre company, and has also started his own business. Alex is an unprolific fiction writer, and also enjoys creating digital artworks and photography, and playing soccer. But most of all, he just loves to act.
Adele McCarthy (Composer/Sound Design)
Adele has worked with SNAFU Theatre on two recent productions, The Beginning of the End (2008) and The Dead Air (2009), creating soundscapes and composing and performing incidental music. Other projects Adele has on the boil include her ongoing electronic compositions, as well as playing dirty sax with the Lowdown Street Orchestra. Adele studied music composition at Monash University, receiving the Ernst Morewitz prize for her third year studies.
