Giles Hogya Stage Lighting Designer at Blue Bridge Repertory Theatre Columbia Britnica, CanadArtes escnicas Actual Blue

Bridge Repertory Theatre Anterior Blue Bridge Rep and Theater 2020, JCRep, UVic

Professors at University of Victoria.

LONGTIME VICTORIA ARTS SUPPORTERS LEAVE VALUABLE LEGACY TO UVIC UVic fine arts students will benefit from a $230,000 gift from the estate of longtime Victoria arts supporters, Maurice Johnson and Audrey St. Denys-Johnson. The bequest to UVics faculty of fine arts will establish five annual scholarships of approximately $2,000 each, for one student in each of the five fine arts departments: music, theatre, history in art, writing and visual arts. Audrey and Maurice were extraordinary people, and life-long friends of the faculty. They have supported our students for decades. This gift will further support the creative potential of students for generations to come, says Dr. Giles Hogya, dean of fine arts.

The Audrey St. Denys and Maurice E. Johnson Scholarships in Fine Arts will honour a couple with a life-long appreciation of the arts.

Maurice Johnson grew up in Sooke and, as a young man, lived and worked in Malaya. During the second world war he was a machine-gunner with the 4th Panang Battalion during the Japanese attack. He took part in the retreat to Singapore, and on the eve of its capture, was ordered to leave on one of the last escape boats. Johnson returned to Canada to join the Canadian Army, became a member of the Canadian Intelligence Corps and was sent back to Malaya as a captain. Following his return to Victoria he earned his BA at UVic and his law degree at UBC. Johnson practiced law until his retirement. He loved theatre, music and gardening. Audrey St. Denys not only shared her husbands love of theatre and music, she was a highly regarded theatre critic, writing the arts column for the Victoria Times from 1944 to 1980 and the Victoria Times Colonist until 1987, while witnessing the maturation of Victorias key artistic people and institutions. Her documentation of the growth of the UVic theatre department was also extensive and her husband donated her papers to UVic in 1995, two years after her passing. The documents provided the basis for her biography Arts Beat, The Arts in Victoria, written by former UVic education professor Dr. Dale McIntosh.

Giles Hogya - Dean of Fine Arts BA Miami University, PhD Northwestern University Professor ghogya@finearts.uvic.ca Stage lighting, stage directing Dr. Giles Hogya received his BA from Miami University and his MA and Ph.D. from Northwestern University. First appointed as a Lecturer in the Department of Theatre at the University of Victoria (UVic) in 1972, Giles is now a Full-Professor. He became Chair of the Department in 1995. For the last 4 years, Dr. Hogya has served as the Dean of Fine Arts.

A professional lighting designer and stage director, Dr. Hogya is Resident Artist at the Jean Cocteau Repertory Theatre, Off Broadway, in New York City, a position he has held for 25 years. The Cocteau Rep is celebrating it 31st season of continuous revolving rep dedicated to producing the classics in an innovative fashion. Dr. Hogya has produced theatre on 4 continents having recently returned from Bangkok where he directed Waiting for Godot in Thai at the Chulalongkorn Arts Theatre. This fall he returns to the Cocteau, designing the lighting for Shakespeares Henry V. In the fall of 2001, he directed Becketts Endgame at UVic, a play that has fascinated him since his teenage years. Dr. Hogya has wide experience on the international scene. At the lInstitute pour les etudients Americains in Aix-en-Provence, France, he directed Tennessee Williams' 27 Wagons Full of Cotton during his Junior Year Abroad. In Kabba, Nigeria, as a Peace Corps Volunteer, he established and toured with his Childrens Theatre Company while teaching at the Kabba Teachers Training College. During his 2-1/2 year stint in Nigeria, he also produced a series of plays for young audiences for Nigerian Television in Ibandan besides establishing a creative dramatics program at the University of Ibadan. In 1986, he directed and designed Anne Mortifee and the Canadian Youth Ambassadors for Peace, which toured Russia and the Ukraine. In 1998, Giles produced and, designed Krapps Last Tapes for The UVic International Beckett Festival featuring scholars and performers from 6 countries. In

2000, as part of the UVic sponsored Orion Professorial Exchange Program, Dr. Hogya taught for a term at the kings university, Chulalongkorn University, in Bangkok, Thailand.