Born and raised in Vancouver, British Columbia, Elena Juatco is an award-winning actress and singer who has performed for audiences across Canada. Elena received the 2010 Jessie Richardson Award for Outstanding Actress in a Leading Role and an Ovation Award Nomination for her portrayal as Christine Colgate in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels at the Vancouver Playhouse. In 2006, she was nominated for a Dora Mavor Moore Award for her performance as the title role in Ross Petty’s Snow White and the Group of Seven which ran at the Elgin Theatre in Toronto.
Before Elena dedicated her life to the Arts, she was an 18 year-old Biology major auditioning for Season 2 of Canadian Idol on CTV. Nicknamed the “Little Dynamo from B.C.”, she placed sixth in 2004. Two years later in the middle of her 3rd year at Queen’s, she signed on as Canadian Idol‘s Season 4 Roving Reporter, joining the show’s cross-country tour and hosting several segments for both Idol and CTV’s entertainment news show, eTalk Daily. Since then, Elena completed her Honours B.A. from the Drama Program at Queen’s University with a minor in Women Studies and parlayed her experience into a successful theatre career.
Elena most recently completed the Arts Club’s B.C. touring production of Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story where she reprised the role of Buddy’s wife, Maria Elena, from the production’s original summer run at the Stanley Theatre. The show returns to the Stanley Theatre in July of 2012 (www.artsclub.com
One of Elena’s favourite projects was her solo performance in the award-winning play, Dianne & Me, at the 2011 Vancouver Fringe Festival, which she also produced and developed under a new production company, My Lucky Penny Productions. Shane Birley of Plank Magazine said the show was “performed by someone who is bound for great things and, I think, deserves it.”
Audiences may also remember Elena from a successful season at the St. Lawrence Shakespeare Festival, where she was double-cast as the leading ladies in Twelfth Night (Viola) and All’s Well That Ends Well (Helena). Other roles performed by Elena include: Marcy Park in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (Sudbury Theatre Centre), Gabriella Montez in the Canadian Premiere of Disney’s High School Musical (Neptune), Kim in Miss Saigon (her dream role and one of her favourite shows!), Philia in A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to Forum (Drayton Entertainment), and Hilde in The Master Builder (Theatre Kingston).
Elena will appear in an episode of “The Transporter Series” on Cinemax/HBO in 2012. For film, she appears in Toilet (directed by Naoko Ogigami), and Darren Bousman’s horror flick, Repo! The Genetic Opera (from the makers of the SAW Films).
Elena is currently playing Marcy in Angelwalk Theatre’s I Love You Because, playing at the Toronto Centre for the Arts Studio Space from March 28th – April 15th, 2012. (www.angelwalk.ca
She will also be appearing in two workshop pieces by Gein Wong in the 2012 Mayworks Festival and Canadian Stage’s Festival of Ideas and Creation.
When not acting or singing, Elena also loves to write, travel, photograph, play the piano and guitar, dance, cheer for the Canucks, and continue the search for the world’s best poutine. So far, Bubba’s in Kingston, Ontario takes the cake.
She also loves to tweet … (@elenajuatco 