Exact Resemblance acknowledges that we live and create on the unceded, ancestral, and traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. We are grateful to make and share theatre on these lands, and we recognize the deep histories, stories, and stewardship that continue to shape this place.
We extend our heartfelt thanks to St. Mary’s Kerrisdale for their generous support of our creative process.
Our gratitude also goes to Rompost TV, our ofIicial media sponsor, and to La Maison de la Francophonie de Vancouver for welcoming us into your beautiful space.
Your generosity and partnership help make this work possible.
The Zoo Story is presented by special arrangement with Broadway Licensing, LLC, servicing the Dramatists Play Service collection (www.dramatists.com)
Cast & Crea3ve Team
Jacob Macin – alternating the roles of Peter and Jerry
Michael Briganti – alternating the roles of Peter and Jerry
Cristiana Ripeanu – Director
Samantha Levy – Assistant Director
Tara-Cheyenne Friedenberg – Choreography & Fight Direction
Set, Sound & Lighting Design by Cristiana Ripeanu
Graphic Design: Ariana Zachau
Marketing: Micaela Abalos & Francis Rosario
Director’s Note
I’ve been in Vancouver for four years now. But from the point of view of the roots I’ve managed to put down, it might as well have been last week.
For fourteen years in Germany, I yearned to return to Canada, a country I felt had embraced me, both as an immigrant and as an artist. But I came back to a different world. Arriving in the middle of a global pandemic wasn’t exactly the best time to meet people, make friends, or reconnect with my artistic community. And though life has returned to a kind of normalcy, I still often feel disconnected, both personally and professionally.
This feeling is part of why I founded Exact Resemblance: a small attempt to build a family of my own through art. It’s also why I’ve felt so drawn to Albee’s The Zoo Story.
In a city where so many newcomers talk about how hard it is to make friends or feel a sense of belonging, where economic disparity is stark, where scenes of addiction, trauma, and misery are passed by daily with indifference, in a city where people still choose social isolation and haven’t fully returned to public spaces, I find myself, in many ways, feeling like Jerry.
I long for connection, for recognition, for conversation and the only way I know how to seek those things is through theatre.
Albee’s first play is a poetic and deeply challenging text. It’s not an easy piece to stage. But 70 years after it was written, The Zoo Story still resonates fiercely. It allows me to channel the emotions I’ve experienced since moving here. It also lets me show what I believe theatre is — and why it matters.
I think of the theatre as a sacred space, not unlike the feeling of going on a long hike in BC’s wilderness: it’s a place to reconnect with ourselves, with others, and with what it means to be human. It’s a place to unplug from the false screens of digital life, to feel more deeply, and to remember how to listen.
In the words of Jerry: “we neither love nor hurt because we do not try to reach each other.”
Let’s change that. Let’s feel again. Let’s return to the theatre.
Cristiana Ripeanu
About Edward Albee and The Zoo Story
Edward Albee (1928–2016) was a towering Iigure in American theatre, known for his uncompromising interrogation of social conventions, human behaviour, and the fragility of identity. Often grouped with the absurdists Beckett, Ionesco, Pinter Albee forged a distinctly American voice that blended existential unease with psychological precision and biting wit.
Over the course of his six-decade career, Albee’s plays won him three Pulitzer Prizes (A Delicate Balance, Seascape, Three Tall Women) and a place in the canon alongside Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams. His best-known work, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, is a searing portrait of marital disillusionment and the games people play to survive their own lives.
The Zoo Story, written in 1958 when Albee was just 30, was his Iirst play. It marked a radical departure from the commercial theatre of its time, offering a raw, elliptical confrontation between two strangers on a park bench one secure and passive, the other volatile and desperate to be heard. Though deceptively simple in structure, the play is a profound meditation on class, alienation, and the existential violence of being unseen. It asks: What happens when the social contract breaks down? What price do we pay for silence or for speaking the truth?
With The Zoo Story, Albee announced himself as a dramatist unafraid to provoke, unsettle, and demand reIlection. More than six decades later, the play remains a bracing and deeply human cry into the void one that still echoes powerfully today.
Synopsis
Set on a park bench in New York’s Central Park, The Zoo Story follows a chance encounter between two strangers: Peter, a comfortable publishing executive, and Jerry, an isolated outsider desperate to make a human connection.
What begins as a polite conversation quickly spirals into something much more urgent, unsettling, and ultimately tragic. With biting humour and poetic language, Edward Albee’s Iirst play confronts themes of loneliness, social alienation, and the desperate human need to be seen and heard.
More than sixty years after its premiere, The Zoo Story remains a piercingly relevant investigation of what happens when we forget how to listen and what it might cost to try. Biographies
Michael Brigan3
Michael Briganti is a multidisciplinary performer from Montreal, QC, thrilled to join Exact Resemblance for this journey into the absurd. His work spans a range of storytelling mediums, from singing and songwriting to being a cast member on the D&D actual play podcast Theatre of the MindIlayer alongside his Zoo Story co-star Jacob Machin and spends his summer months performing aboard Vancouver’s pirate-themed theatrical cruise, Granville Pirate Adventures.
Jacob Machin
Jacob's career started in pantomime before Iinding a brief but successful calling in stand-up comedy, winning the 2007 Melbourne International Comedy Festival's 'Class Clowns' competition. Jacob went on to various theatre productions such as Death Of A Salesman, Next To Normal, Young and Jackson, directed by Wayne Harrison, August: Osage County, and Much Ado About Nothing with Melbourne Shakespeare Company. Now based in Vancouver, Jacob has recently appeared in ‘Big Sky,' 'Supernatural,' and 'Twilight Zone.’ As member of Exact Resemblance, Jacob has played AA in The Emigrants by S. Mrozek and Roland in Constellations, by N. Payne.
Cris3ana Ripeanu
Cristiana Ripeanu is a theatre director and educator. graduate of the National University for Theatre and Cinematography, in Bucharest, Romania and holding an MFA in stage directing from York University, Cristiana has gathered knowledge and artistry from some titans of the industry, including Tudor Marascu, Sanda Manu, Valeriu Moisescu, David Rotenberg and David Smukler among others. During her studies, Cristiana discovered her calling for comedy, a skill honed through many stagings in different styles, from Commedia dell’Arte to Shakespeare to theatre of the absurd. Her shows performed at several national theatres in Romania and enjoyed performances in multiple languages at various European festivals. In Canada and Germany, Cristiana has worked as a theatre educator and stage director with smaller independent theatres. In Vancouver, Cristiana co-founded Exact Resemblance and has been producing the past two seasons.
Samantha Levy
Samantha fell in love with the stage at the age of Iive and never looked back! She is now a theatre artist and works primarily as a performer, director, deviser, and educator. Her art reIlects her love of clown, improvisation, music, and classic text. Born and raised in Tiohtià :ke (Montreal), Samantha is now based in K'emk'emelá y̓ (Vancouver). As an actor, she is both a Jessie Richardson Award nominee (Le merveilleux voyage d’Inè s de l’Ouest, Emilie Leclerc, Thé â tre La Seiziè me) and an OVATION! Award nominee (Spring Awakening, Wells / Besse / Grant / Makelki, Delta Players Theatre). As an emerging director, some things Samantha has helped create include Bitches with Baggage (Vancouver Fringe Festival / Roomie Productions) and Dissolve (Shameless Hussy Productions, Assistant Director to Renee Iaci). She is a recent graduate from the Acting program at Studio 58 and a former Riotous Youth with Bard on the Beach.
Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg
Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg is an award winning creator, performer, choreographer, director, writer, and artistic director of Tara Cheyenne Performance, working across disciplines in Iilm, dance, theatre, and experimental performance. She is renowned as a trailblazer in interdisciplinary performance and as a mighty performer "who deIies categorization on any level". Along with her own creations Tara has collaborated with many theatre companies and artists including; Zee Zee Theatre, Bard on the Beach, ItsaZoo Theatre, The Arts Club, Boca De Lupo, Ruby Slippers, The Firehall Arts Centre, Vertigo Theatre (Calgary).
About Exact Resemblance
Exact Resemblance is a Vancouver-based independent theatre company founded in 2022 by director Cristiana Ripeanu and actor Gillian Clare. We create text-driven theatre that questions, provokes, and reveals, stories that invite laughter, discomfort, and recognition in equal measure.
With a focus on immigrant and underrepresented voices, we explore the fragile and essential ways people connect and communicate. Each project is a meeting point between artistry and inquiry and an opportunity for audiences and artists to examine what it means to be seen, to listen, and to exist together in the same space.
Want to Get Involved?
Exact Resemblance is growing and we’d love to grow with you.
As a small, independent company dedicated to bold, text-driven theatre, we are entering an exciting new phase and are looking for passionate collaborators to help us take the next step. Whether you have experience in fundraising, community outreach, board governance, or just a deep love for theatre, there’s a place for you here.
If you believe in the power of live performance and want to support underrepresented voices, emerging artists, and meaningful cultural work we want to hear from you.
� Reach us at exact.resemblance@gmail.com
Let’s build something lasting, together.
Connect With Us
Email: exact.resemblance@gmail.com Instagram / Facebook: @exactresemblance Website: www.exactresemblance.com
