JANELLE HUTCHISON (Helena)
Actor/Singer/Writer/Producer/Mother/Optimist.
Toiling in the cultural trenches for more decades than the less well-adjusted might care to admit, Janelle’s career includes more than 1400 performances of the original Canadian production of Les Misérables as the Innkeeper’s wife, Mme. Thénardier. Other theatre credits include Company, White Christmas, Oliver, Isn’t It Romantic?, Crimes of the Heart, Gypsy and, as a young actor, The Last of the Red Hot Lovers opposite Sid Caesar…where she learned more in ten weeks than the previous two years.
On film/TV, she can be seen in the upcoming Young Werther, as well as Handmaid’s Tale, Hairspray, The Kennedys mini-series, Being Erica, and is a proud survivor of the Saw films.
Hard(ish) at work on a second novel, her first, Ending Up, is a story of starting over, a theme echoed in Manage This, a pilot for television she’s also currently collaborating on. An alumna of the CFC, Janelle’s script, Perfect Drop, won Best Achievement in Screenwriting at TMU and her feature screenplay, Water’s Edge, received a Jim Burt Prize nomination at the Canadian Screenwriting Awards. Writing for the theatre includes an English translation of the French-Canadian opera, Colas et Colinette.
After nearly ten years as the founding administrator for NYU/Tisch’s New Studio on Broadway, where she produced more than seventy plays and musicals and was twice nominated for Tisch’s Distinguished Administrator of the Year, Janelle returned home to Toronto. She currently serves on the board of Studio 180 Theatre.
A Renaissance Woman, Janelle is a damn fine Jeopardy player in her living room.
Dead Right 