TOM SCHOLTE, BFA, MFA (UBC)

Tom is a nationally recognized actor, director, writer and producer in the realms of theatre, film, and television.

Among his numerous screen credits are a Genie nominated (Canada Screen Award – Film) and Leo winning (BC Film and Television) performance in the feature film, Last Wedding; a Gemini winning (Canada Screen Award – Television) performance on the TV drama, Da Vinci’s Inquest; and a Leo winning performance in the short film Exposures.

As a director, his feature film, Crime, premiered at the Vancouver International Film Festival before being broadcast nationally on Super Channel and his short film, Working Class Heroes, has been seen around the world on Shorts TV.

Producing credits include the Larry Kent feature, The Hamster Cage, which screened at festivals around the globe and the Bruce Sweeney feature The Dick Knost Show (aka Hoser) which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival before being acquired for broadcast by US Netflix.  Tom was also a lead actor in both of those films.  He is currently in production as co-story author/producer and director on the feature film, Slump.

On stage, he is a two-time Jessie nominee (Vancouver theatre) who has appeared for such companies as Vancouver’s Playhouse, Pi Theatre, Ruby Slippers and Arts Club Theatre Company, Toronto’s Modern Times Stage Company, and Whitehorse’s Nakai Theatre. As a director, he was a founding member of Neworld Theatre.

Tom has been trained in the techniques of Theatre of the Oppressed and Theatre for Living by David Diamond under whose direction he was an actor and co-creator in Theatre for Living’s ‘šxʷʔam̓ət (home). Since 2017, he has been the Faculty Lead and Artistic Director of Conflict Theatre@UBC, a partnership between UBC’s Departments of Human Resources, Theatre and Film, and Office of Equity and Inclusion, using Forum Theatre to explore blockages to productive and authentic communication in situations of workplace conflict.

In addition to his continuing artistic practice, Tom in engaged in ongoing research exploring cybernetics in the Stanislavski System of Acting and the naturalistic theatre as a modelling facility for complex adaptive social systems.  His publications on this work can be found in such journals as Kybernetes and Constructivist Foundations.  He is currently pursuing a PhD in these topics in the Centre for Systems Studies at the University of Hull (UK).