All about Renee
Renée Wong (she/they) is an actor, director, playwright, and arts administrator based in Toronto, Ontario. Renee is a member of the 2020 Crane Creations Theatre Company’s Summer Ensemble as an Artistic Producer. Renee is also a recent graduate of Humber College Theatre Performance Program. Some of the companies Renee has worked with are Paprika Festival, Toronto Fringe, SummerWorks Festival and TO Live. Most recently Renee is working at Crows Theatre and Factory Theatre. Renee is dedicated to exploring marginalized stories, inspired by her personal experience being raised Hong Kong as well as Toronto.
Education
Renee has a degree from Humber College in Theatre Performance. Renee also has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Toronto where she specialized in Strategic Management and minored in Theatre Performance at University of Toronto.
Experience
Renee Is A Playwright
Renee is also a playwright. Renée’s first play We Are Humans, Aren’t We? tackles the themes of self-identities and bullying. This play was premiered at the Act Fast Theatre Festival and is in the process of further development.
Renee Is An Actor
Renee Wong is an actor. Her selected acting credits include A Chinese Love Song (Humber Film and Television), TomorrowLove (Humber Theatre), Pandora In Blue Jeans (Humber Theatre), Elektra (Humber Theatre), QT Collective (The 519/Soulpepper Theatre), PuppetSchool: A Little Bit of Everything (SpringWorks Festival: PuppetWorks!), PrideCab (Buddies in Bad Times Theatre).
Renee Is A Designer
Renee is a 2021 resident of The Festival of Live Digital Art (FOLDA) Thought Residences 2021 Thought Residences. The Festival of Live Digital Art (FOLDA) is produced by Spiderweb show Performance. It began in 2018. FOLDA exists to support artists creating theatre in a digital age.
Renee Is A Content Creator
They are also a content creator and is an article writer for Arts Guide Mississauga.
Renee Is An Arts Administration
Renee Wong works as an arts administrator for Crow’s Theatre in Toronto Ontario, Canada.
Renee’s additional skills and hobbies
- Renee is a Cosplayer: Renée is also a proud cosplayer and prop-maker, she could be seen at various anime conventions in handmade costumes. Follow her work at Instagram: @reneeewcs
- Renee Enjoys Sports: Renee is active and has experience in Badminton, Cycling, Golf, Ping Pong, Running and Swimming.
- Languages: Renee speaks many languages including Cantonese and English.
Renee Wong: Summer Ensemble 2020
As an arts administrator and Artistic Producer Renee has the important task of helping a theatre company operate She supports Crane Creations with its day to day operations. She creates social media content for marketing purposes, and assists with outreach campaigns, reaching out to local business and the arts in Mississauga as well as international companies, to build networking connections, and raise awareness. Renee Wong helps make the Arts in Mississauga much more vibrant. She also assists in larger projects.
What is an Artistic Producer
An artistic Producer has an essential role in theatre. They oversee organizational operations and all aspects of a theatre production. Artistic Producers are responsible for the strategic planning and production of theatrical events and take care of the financial and managerial functions to make these theatrical events happen. They also manage day to day activities to make a company run. An Artist Producer balances the big-picture with everyday tasks required to make a business run. An Artistic producer must be have the following skills: event management, time management, project management, teamwook, problemsolving, leadership, financial planning, business management and communication. Their roles and duties constantly change depending on the need of the theatre company. In summary, an artistic producer is the person who makes theatre happen.
What does an Artistic Producer do?
- Look after the finances and manage how the budget is spent
- Hire creative and technical teams
- Issue contracts
- Organize and manage technical, stage management and workshop functions
- Agreeing projects and financial backers
- Agreeing production timelines
- Finding and booking venue
- Setting ticket prices
- Selling tickets
- Create and implement marketing strategies
- Outreach
- Holding regular meetings with Directors, creative teams and Artists
- Hold regular meetings with stakeholders
- Ensuring legal compliance such as copyright law, insurance liability, payroll and tax
Activities Renee was a part of During Summer Ensemble
Bridges Festival
As an Artistic Producer Renee was essential in helping make the event Bridges Festival 2021, a reality.
Bridges Festival – is an international puppetry Festival in Mississauga. Bridges Festival is a three day puppetry festival that happens at the beginning of March Break. Filled with exciting puppetry shows from around the world, award winning animated shorts, an exhibit about the art of puppetry from its origin to today. Bridges Festival aims to connect professional puppeteers from around the world and bridge cultures through one of the oldest art forms.
Bridges Festival, now Puppet Festival Mississauga’s mission is to ignite a reflection of the world in our audiences by connecting past and the future. We celebrate traditional forms of puppetry and the skills of the puppet designers and performers, while expanding the conversation of what is puppetry and animation and how it touches contemporary world. Puppet Festival Mississauga is one of the events in Mississauga produced by Crane Creations Theatre Company.
Bridges Festival 2021
Bridges Festival 2021, was the first Bridges festival to be done entirely online, due to Covid-19. Renee helped Crane Creations Theatre Company move Bridges Festival entirely online. She also helped with the planning of digital installations, displaying short animated films which were displayed in the store windows of small business across Mississauga, including Halo Espresso Bar. Halo Espresso Bar is a cafe, located in Cooksville, Mississauga just north of Port Credit. Thanks to Renee’s help we successfully ran a safe and socially distanced Festival during Covid-19.
Bridges Festival 2022
Bridges Festival 2022 will be happening this upcoming March 2022 from March 11 to March 13, in Mississauga. We are excited to announce that we will be hosting in person events this year.
Renee Wong
“I think Crane Creations is leading a change in the Canadian theatre industry, despite being small and at the beginning stages of its development. It definitely has the potential to grow and be the forefront of a new movement. I value the mission and mandate it goes by, and I am proud to say that I am a part of the start of that change.”
Creating Videos
Renee is an amazing videographer and editor.She created and designed videos to promote Bridges Festival as well as creating additional videos to celebrate and promote additional activities by Crane Creation Theatre Company, including our Summer Ensemble, and our translation project.
Aimee Poulin, Core Team Crane Creations
“Renee is fantastic at making videos. She is so creative. I love watching her create. She can come up with such interesting things”
Play Translation Project
Crane Creations Theatre Company has translated the works of Ivan Cankar, a celebrated Slovenian playwright into English for the very first time.
About The Translation Project
This play translation project is a collaborative effort between Presernovo Gledališče Kranj, a professional repertory theatre located in the city of Kranj, Slovenia, and Crane Creations Theatre Company. This project is generously supported by the European Commission and the Slovene Government.
Ivan Cankar is known by many as the the “undiscovered Eastern European Ibsen” and the “father of Slovene drama”.
Cankar is regarded as the greatest writer in the Slovene language and yet is unknown in most of the world. The plays will be translated from Slovene into English by professional expert translators to allow for many more people to experience his genius. The plays are published and are now available for purchase both in print and in the form of an e-book.
Renee helped us get this massive project off the ground, when the plays were first being translated. She created and social media profiles for the project and generated interest in the project. She also assisted us in helping manage all the partners involved in this project, including the translators, editors, producing companies from all around the world. Without Renee this project would not be as successful as it was.
Terror
Renee also assisted us during workshops of the play of Terror. Terror is an interactive courtroom Drama. Crane Creations theatre Company is presenting the Canadian Premier of Terror, by Ferdinand von Schirach and translated by David Tushingham.
About Terror
Terror is a courtroom drama, written by one of the most successful German contemporary writers, Ferdinand von Schirach. The play questions the idea of a means justifying an end and warns against quantifying human life. The audience serves as a jury at the trial of a fighter jet pilot. He is accused of killing 164 passengers off a commercial airplane, hijacked by terrorists, heading towards a soccer stadium with 70,000 people. The end of the play depends on the verdict of the audience.
Renee, along with other activities, assisted us in producing Terror by helping with outreach to potential audiences, sponsor and partners in Mississauga and raising awareness of Crane Creations Theatre.
During her time at Crane Creations Theatre Company, Renee became an integral part of the team. She has so many talents and is one of the people that helps elevates the Arts in Mississauga.
Why we love Renee
Using her unique combination of skills, a creative background in theatre, her expertise and love of the arts, sound and lighting design background and in cosplay, and her background in strategic management of organizing and management for the future, Renee makes a great Artistic Producer.
Together with her stage management partner, Oli Allen, Renee helped make summer ensemble 2020 a fantastic year.
