— ABOUT THE PROJECT

Shipwright is a storytelling exhibit that is part installation and part performance piece that evokes Prince Edward Island’s shipbuilding past. It is scheduled to be a part of the Radiant Rural Halls Festival for one weekend in early March, 2022. At the heart of the exhibit are nine model ships, all built from scratch by Island craftsman Vernon Corney. The ships are arranged in a circle to be viewed freely. For two hours per day, two actors take on the roles of PEI shipwrights and create an atmosphere in the space. They work and sing. They sleep and eat. They tell stories, play banjo and laze around, all to evoke sense memory of PEI’s age of sail.

— BIOGRAPHY

Patrick Jeffrey (Acting, 2020) is an actor and theatre-maker who grew up on Prince Edward Island and lived for half a decade in St. John’s, Newfoundland. He loves theatre because it makes him feel less alone and more alive.

Patrick has performed professionally in such companies as Repercussion (dir: Amanda Kellock, Montreal), Sweetline (dir: Danielle Irvine, St. John’s), and the Confederation Players (dir: Greg Doran, Charlottetown). His screen work can be seen on the Discovery/Netflix original series Frontier, and the upcoming film Moment One (Ewola Cinema).

At the National Theatre School he trained with many coaches including Ian Watson (Shakespeare), David Latham (Neutral Mask), Jackie Maxwell (Chekhov), Adam Lazarus & Ann-Marie Kerr (Jeu), Anita Nittoly and John Stead (Stage Combat), Graeme Somerville and Deborah Hay (Shaw), Brenda Bazinet (Naturalism), Fiona Byrne (Canadian Scene Study), and many others. At NTS he played Romeo in Romeo & Juliet (dir: Danielle Irvine), King Charles II in Nell Gwynn (dir. Krista Jackson) and performed in shows directed by Alisa Palmer, Arianna Bardesono, Zach Fraser, and Mike Payette.

Patrick is also a writer and his plays have been produced in the PEI Fringe Festival (Oh, Prometheus!, 2013) and the St. John’s Shorts Festival (Brûlé, 2017). In his free time he loves cycling, canoeing, reading, and playing guitar.


Headshot by Jeremy Cabrera