Cast & Crew

Amy Lee Newman

Amy Lee Newman is an actor, singer, dancer, playwright, costumer, artistic director, producer – wearing many hats over her career. Most recently, Amy performed in a workshop of Human Acts, a multilingual play produced by Rice & Beans Theatre Company at Progress Lab. Favourite performances over the years include Meadows of Stone, Pride & Prejudice, My Life in the Gold Rush, The Unquiet Grave, Bernadette’s Gold Rush Escape, Blues Gals & Boogie Woogie, Gypsy, Bye Bye Birdie, Much Ado About Nothing, Steel Magnolias, Oliver, Carmen and Fiddler on the Roof, a highlight for Amy as an emerging performer: she shared the stage with her mother, while her father played in the band.

Amy spent 16 years as co-artistic director – along with MOS producer, Richard Wright – at Theatre Royal in Barkerville Historic Town, where they produced over 75 original dramas, musicals and variety shows. Amy became a playwright at this time, creating solo shows highlighting the stories of Barkerville women. An award-winning costume designer, Amy is also an on-camera host/narrator for over 30 short documentaries on the BC Gold Rush and the Cariboo Waggon Road. Other passions include spending time in wild places with birds and a camera, cycling and swimming.

If you want to catch Amy performing throughout the year, check out what amounts to a solo street theatre show, her Lost Souls of Gastown tour with Forbidden Vancouver Walking Tours. Or enjoy performances of her caroling quartet, The Christmas Revelers entertaining throughout the holiday season at various locations around Vancouver.

Writing Meadows of Stone with her musical pal, Jim Hodgkinson was a transformative experience, and singing Jim’s stunning score is a dream come true. It’s a thrill to be performing their show again, this time with both Jim and Brendan, and Richard producing. What a dream team!

Brendan Bailey

Brendan Bailey is a film and stage performer and interpretive historical actor. He has performed in Barkerville Historic Town & Park for most seasons since 2011, including previously with Newman & Wright in 13 cumulative repertory productions for Barkerville’s Theatre Royal and with Amy’s Christmas Revelers carolling quartet in Vancouver for several seasons.

Some of his principal and supporting film credits include Barkerville: The Series, A Great North Christmas, Shadow Trap, and Long Road to Cariboo, while favourite stage credits include Sawney’s Legacy (NPT), Here’s to the Fools (Barkerville), Westering Man and Bernadette’s Gold Rush Escape (N&W), Love Kills: A Rock Musical (Theatre Inconnu), Anne & Gilbert: The Musical (GOYA), Songs for a New World (ASNY), and The Rocky Horror Show (OPAAT).

Complementary to performance, Brendan is an MBA Candidate through Royal Roads University specialising in management consulting and executive management. He is also writing a biography on Barkerville’s museum history. His business career has included the general and restaurant management of Noodlebox Gastown (Vancouver) and emergency services management as a former municipal fire chief (Wells Volunteer Fire Brigade). He and his wife, Emily—another N&W alumnus—operate a small theatre company, Noble Players Theatrics. Brendan’s most important role, though, is as a husband and a father.

Brendan was delighted as an audience member for Meadows of Stone’s workshop production, finding it to be a mesmerising reminder of the power of song and storytelling in captivating musical theatre. He is enthralled to now join the cast, reunite with Newman & Wright Productions, and to once again share the stage with Amy and Jim.

For more visit brendanbailey.ca | imdb.me/brendanbailey

Jim Hodgkinson

From film music to choral settings of poetic texts, from witty theatre songs to works for large and small jazz groups—pianist/composer/lyricist Jim Hodgkinson has been busy doing it all.

Jim made his concert debut at Carnegie Recital Hall with jazz vibraphonist Ted Piltzecker, leading to guest artist concerts with orchestras, radio broadcasts including original works on CBC radio, music directing and composing for film. Recent work includes creating music and lyrics for Meadows of Stone with playwright Amy Newman, Little Women—A Classic Family Musical, with playwright Mark DuMez, and songs for the Lucia Frangione play Leave of Absence, now published through Talon Books. Jim’s Yukon Suite was premiered in Colorado by the Aspen Festival Jazz Ensemble.

As an accompanist, Jim gained attention working with such stars as the Canadian operatic tenor Richard Margison and Stratford Festival artist Cynthia Dale. His continuing work as a musical director and pianist in theatre includes a US tour of Saturday Night Fever, Jesus Christ Superstar at the Stratford Festival, Miss Saigon, Suds, The Marvelous Wonderettes, The Crooner, Billy Bishop Goes to War, Kings and Queens of Country and many more, in theatres across Canada.

Jim was a soloist at the official opening of Canada’s Embassy to the United States in Washington, DC and spent many a happy year entertaining the corporate world at the Vancouver Hyatt Regency hotel, Waterfront Centre, and Jasper Park Lodge.

Meadows of Stone is the happy result of a three-year writing project with Jim’s good pal, Amy Newman. Great to see this show hitting the road!

Larisse Campbell

Larisse Campbell (she/her) is an MFA Directing 2026 Candidate. She holds a B.ED in Drama from the University of Alberta. She is a dual, Canadian and American citizen and her directing work has been seen across North America. She is a directing alumni of both The Kennedy Center for the Arts and Directors Lab North cohorts and was recently awarded the Sydney J. Risk Award in both 2024 and 2025 and The Dorothy Somerset Award, for directing.

Her thesis production, Mr. Burns: A Post-Electric Play by Anne Washburn, which explored how storytelling can become a necessary tool for survival, was produced in November of 2025 at the Frederic Wood Theatre at UBC. Previous directing credits include: Metamorphoses (United Players of Vancouver), Away Uniform (UBC Theatre and Film), The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) [Revised] (Wisconsin Shakespeare Festival), Our Town (Little Dipper Theatre), Tragedy, Slander & Wine (Promethean Theatre), Wolves Are Coming For You (Pacific Theatre) and Bonnie and Clyde (The Ordinary Productions).

larissecampbell.com

Richard Thomas Wright

Richard Thomas Wright has had a life in the arts: from performance, writing, and film work to artist management and theatre production.

As a writer he has published over 1,000 articles and newspaper features on resource management, history, technology and outdoor adventure, in magazines such as BC Outdoors, Canadian Geographic, Summit, Photo Canada, True West, Westworld, and Western Living. Turning to photography, Richard produced and filmed 18 half-hour shows for CBC TV’s Klahanie, while free-lancing for CBC’s Nature of Things, CBC News and US broadcasters.

At this time, he and his family were the subjects of the National Film Board documentary, Family Down the Fraser. Later years brought Richard to the role of Associate Editor at the Quesnel Cariboo Observer and later he became Managing Editor of the Cowichan News Leader where he won several newspaper awards.

Richard has written and published 23 books, notably: Barkerville and the Cariboo Goldfields (two editions); Overlanders; In a Strange Land: A Pictorial Record of the Chinese in Canada, 1788-1923; and Ride Around Real Slow. One of Richard’s favourite projects was a CD he produced, Rough But Honest Miner: Reclaimed Music of BC’s 1860s Gold Rush and its companion book, Castles in the Air: Music & Stories of British Columbia’s Gold Rush.

After a decade-long hiatus as a rancher, he and partner Amy Newman formed Newman and Wright Theatre Company, combining their skills and passions to operate, produce, write and perform shows at the Theatre Royal in Barkerville Historic Town. Here Richard wrote and directed shows such as The Campfires & Trails of Captain Jack Crawford; Motherlode and Westering Man: The Story of James Anderson. As playwright for Theatre Royal his works include The Unquiet Grave; Firestorm; An Overlander’s Story; Diller’s Luck and Drovers & Dust.

Throughout his career Richard has served on a variety of boards, including: President and Founding Chair of Friends of Barkerville & Cariboo Historical Society; Director of BC Heritage Trust; Director and Executive of Barkerville Heritage Trust; and Councilor of the District of Wells for over a decade.

Richard is currently trying to retire, while maintaining work as a film maker with Winter Quarters Productions and producer of Meadows of Stone with partner Amy Lee Newman. He has two sons, four grandchildren and lives in the grasslands of Kamloops, British Columbia.