2026 THA Peer Assessment Panelists
Carol Bolt Award
With the generous support of multiple organizations
Peer Assessment Panelists: Pâmela Mala Sinha (Chair), Len Falkenstein, Donna-Michelle St. Bernard
Pamela Mala Sinha is a multiple award-winning Canadian actress and writer, working internationally in theatre, television, and film.
Pamela’s most recent play, NEW, was a finalist for the 2024 Governor General’s Award for Drama, and her solo debut play CRASH received multiple Dora Mavor Moore Awards including ‘Outstanding Performance by a Lead Actress’ and ‘Outstanding New Play’. CRASH (published by Scirocco) was also included in a Bloomsbury UK’s Audition Speeches anthology, and Love, Loss and Longing (Playwright’s Canada Press), and had its Off-Broadway debut at the Signature Theatre, New York. Her second play Happy Place premiered in Toronto at Soulpepper Theatre, with productions at Vancouver’s Touchstone Theatre and Winnipeg’s Prairie Theatre Exchange. As one of a few artists who received a prestigious Project Imagination commission (Soulpepper), Pamela began research for NEW which she completed as Playwright-In-Residence at Necessary Angel Theatre. NEW had its World Premiere in November 2022 at Winnipeg’s Royal MTC followed by a Toronto run at Canadian Stage in 2023. Pamela’s film adaptation of Happy Place was produced by Jennifer Kawaja (Sienna Films/Sphere Media) and directed by Helen Shaver. Pamela completed development with CBC and Sienna Films on her series Nirvana and production wrapped last year on the filming of CRASH (Necessary Angel/Riddle Films, soon screening at ISAFF) starring Pamela. She is currently at work on an adaptation of NEW as a feature film and her most recent play, Majesty, commissioned by Tarragon Theatre.
Len Falkenstein is Director of Drama at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton, where he teaches courses in theatre and playwriting. He is also Artistic Director of the NotaBle Acts Theatre Company, which develops and produces new plays by New Brunswick playwrights, and Fredericton’s outdoor Shakespeare company, Bard in the Barracks. Len’s plays, many with an environmental/political focus, have been produced across Canada at Toronto’s SummerWorks Performance Festival and numerous Fringe festivals, and locally at Theatre New Brunswick, the NotaBle Acts Theatre Festival and the Saint John Theatre Company. They include Wood Buffalo (Theatre New Brunswick, 2023), Lac/Athabasca (second prize winner, Herman Voaden national playwriting competition; published by Playwrights Canada Press), Utopia (second prize winner, Ottawa Little Theatre playwriting competition), Doppelgänger (published in Ryga, volume 1), Free/Fall, and Happy City. Len is a native of Macklin, Saskatchewan and holds a Ph.D from the University of Alberta.
Donna-Michelle St. Bernard aka Belladonna the Blest is an emcee, playwright and agitator. Her main body of work is the 54ology: The First Stone, Give It Up, The Smell of Horses, Diggers, Cake, Sound of the Beast, A Man A Fish, Dark Love, Roominhouse, Salome’s Clothes, and Gas Girls. She has collaborated on the creation of The Only Good Indian and They Say He Fell (Pandemic Theatre), Forbidden and Oubliette (Tapestry Opera), The House You Build (Gordon Tootoosis Nekaniwin Theatre) and 501: Toronto in Transit (Theatre Passe Muraille). For Playwrights Canada Press, she is co-editor with Yvette Nolan of Refractions: Solo and Refractions: Scenes as well as editor of Indian Act: Residential School Plays. DM also contributes to the creative ecology as a director, dramaturge and administrator.
Supported by: Playwrights Canada Press, York University Department of Theatre, Dance, & Performance, Scirocco Drama, Alberta Playwrights Network, Manitoba Association of Playwrights, Playwrights Atlantic Resource Centre.
Drama Award
Peer Assessment Panelists: Katrina Dunn (Chair), Barry Bilinsky, Daniel Macdonald
Dr. Katrina Dunn is an Associate Professor in the University of Manitoba’s Department of English, Theatre, Film and Media where she teaches acting, directing, and theatre history and theory in the Theatre Program. Her scholarly work explores the spatial manifestations of theatre, as well as ecocritical theatre. Katrina was the Artistic Director of Vancouver’s Touchstone Theatre from 1997 to 2016, where she had the pleasure of working with many Canadian playwrights and premiering a host of new plays. She also co-founded the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival with Norman Armour and has been thrilled to watch that event thrive. Her long career as a stage director and producer has had considerable impact on the performing arts on the West Coast and has been recognized with numerous awards.
Barry Bilinsky (he/him) is an Indigenous artist from Amiskwacîywâskahikan (Edmonton) of Métis, Cree and Ukrainian lineage. Primarily a professional theatre and film writer/director, Barry pursues work focused on Indigenous stories that are often connected to the cultural intersections he embodies. Working in technical as well as artistic roles, Barry believes that collaborative and holistic practices are the best way to ensure that diverse perspectives are represented. More recently, Barry was the Indigenous Artist in Residence at the National Theatre School of Canada; Writer and Content Developer at Rezolution Pictures; Co-writer for Terril Calder’s animated short film Bastard; and former Artistic Director of Tantoo Cardinal’s “Taproot Actors’ Academy” in Kikino, Alberta. Recent theatre credits include: Director of the 2025 community telling version of Pawâkan Macbeth, Assistant Director of Geordie’s play Jordan, and workshop Director of Jojo O’Neil’s one woman show Parricide. His TYA show Nohkom’s Knick Knacks will also be touring with Geordie theatre in 2026-2027.
Daniel Macdonald is an award winning playwright, director, and educator. Plays for adults include IAGO SPEAKS, BLOW WIND, A HISTORY OF BREATHING, VELOCITY, BANG, RADIANT BOY, MACGREGOR’S HARD ICE CREAM AND GAS, and PAGEANT and are produced across Canada, The U.S., and the U.K. He is also the author or co-author of numerous plays for young people including THESE THINGS I KNOW, FLOCK FORMATIONS, WAKING, TRAGEDIE, THE ROMEO PROJECT, BLIND LOVE (Edinburgh Fringe 2013), HERE, and RADIANT BOY (The Hip Hop Musical For Young People). He has worked extensively with youth in the areas of new play development, improv, and creative writing. As a former high school teacher his improv team once won the Canadian National Improv Championship. Daniel is director of the play development studio RUMPUS. He is also founder and current director/dramaturg of the New Voices program at Gordon Tootoosis Nîkânîwin Theatre (GTNT-Saskatoon) and writer-in-residence with the Healing Arts at St. Paul’s Hospital. His work is published by Playwrights Canada Press and Bloomsbury Books in the UK and has been short-listed for the Carol Bolt Award for Drama and twice short-listed for Regina and Saskatchewan Book of the year. He is a two-time recipient of the City of Regina Writing Award and the winner of the Enbridge PlayRites Award. He is also a recent recipient of the Saskatchewan Arts and Learning Award. Daniel makes his home in Saskatoon with Melanie, Xavier, little Augie, and Fenster The Cat.
Comedy Award
Peer Assessment Panelists: Jivesh Parasram (Chair), Norman Yeung, Laura Teasdale
Jivesh Parasram is a Canadian born multidisciplinary artist of Indo-Caribbean descent (Trinidad & Tobago / Kairi). Jiv grew up in Mi’kma’ki around Kijpuktuk (Halifax, NS), and spent over a decade in T’karonto (Toronto) working throughout the Independent theatre sector in various capacities, including the Associate Artistic Producer for Theatre Passe Muraille.
In 2018, after many visits, Jiv relocated to East Vancouver on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) nations to take on the position of Artistic Director for Rumble Theatre. In addition to his work with Rumble, he is also a freelance artist working most regularly as a director, dramaturge, and writer.
As a playwright his work is published with Playwrights Canada Press and Scirocco Drama.
Norman Yeung is currently writing Aging Youth Gang with development from Theatre Passe Muraille, fu-GEN Theatre Company, and Crow’s Theatre, and Eunuch X Pirate as Playwright in Residence at Outside the March. Productions of his plays include Theory (Tarragon Theatre, Mosaic Theater Company of Washington, D.C.), Pu-Erh (Theatre Passe Muraille, Richmond Hill Centre for the Performing Arts), The Zoonotic Story (Stratford Festival, National Arts Centre), and I Know I’m Supposed to Love You (Touchstone Theatre). Aging Youth Gang was a finalist for the Tom Hendry Award for Comedy and Theory was a finalist for the Carol Bolt Award. His plays have also received The Voaden Prize and Tyrone Guthrie Awards and been nominated for four Dora Awards including Outstanding New Play. He was a finalist for the Johanna Metcalf Performing Arts Prize. Theory is published by Playwrights Canada Press. Norman holds a BFA in Acting/Theatre from University of British Columbia and a BFA (Honours) in Film from Toronto Metropolitan University.
Laura Teasdale’s first gig was singing Rhinestone Cowboy on a lumber pile at her dad’s sawmill when she was three years old. She’s been treading the boards ever since!
She started at Theatre Antigonish in Nova Scotia, then studied at Acadia and Concordia. She worked in Quebec for 27 years as an actor, musician, cartoon voice, playwright, director and clown for such companies as The Centaur, Geordie, Playwrights’ Workshop Montreal, The Segal, Cinar, Ubisoft, CBC and NTS. She returned home in 2018 and doesn’t regret it!
A history addict, Laura is often commissioned to write plays about real events and people. She loves site-specific or outdoor theatre and no matter how serious the theme, makes room for comedy and music wherever she can.
She has had well over 21 plays produced, including Being Hank & Patsy, Home Child, Woodswalker, Love for Sale, Robin Hood (with Andrea Boyd), The Unreliable Narrator, radio play Pete Poirier’s Gift Exchange and Murder by the Book, a library fundraising script commissioned by mystery writer, Louise Penny.
Her play For Love Nor Money, premiered last summer and was nominated for ‘best new script by a Nova Scotia playwright’ at the Merrittt Awards. Her newest play Sister Garden…Eight Tiny Plays about Gospel Hospitality was commissioned by the Sisters of St Martha to celebrate their 125th anniversary.
Musical Award
Peer Assessment Panelists: Leah Simone Bowen, Allen Cole, Lisa Rubin
Leah-Simone Bowen is an award-winning playwright, director, producer and broadcaster. As a writer, her work has been produced and published across Canada and the United States. Most recently, she created and co-hosted the hit irreverent history CBC series The Secret Life of Canada. As a writer and producer for CBC podcasts Leah has worked on countless other series including co-productions with the BBC, Sony Music and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. In 2021, CBC Radio One announced her as the new permanent host of Podcast Playlist, which aired across Canada and the US on PRX. Her most recent work, an adaptation of Scott Joplin’s ragtime era opera Treemonisha was selected as one The New York Time’s best of 2023 and is currently on tour.
Originally from Nova Scotia, Allen Cole has worked variously as composer, musical director, and writer for The Stratford Festival, Shaw Festival, the NAC and many other theatres across the country. He’s won numerous awards, including four Doras, ten Merritts and a Best Film Score Award from The Atlantic Film Festival. His musical Rockbound won five Merritt Awards, including Best New Play, Best Music and Best Production, and was nominated for the Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia’s Masterworks Award. His funk musical comedy The Bricklin premiered in Fredericton, New Brunswick in 2010, and played in Katowice, Poland in 2013 and 2015. Allen has co-created many musical theatre works for Two Planks and a Passion in Ross Creek, Nova Scotia.
Celebrating over 10 years as the Segal Centre’s Artistic & Executive Director, Lisa Rubin has championed theatre as a means of building community while nurturing the next generation of artists and audiences. Her directing credits include Bad Jews, Million Dollar Quartet, Marjorie Prime, Indecent, Prayer for the French Republic, POTUS, and Clue: On Stage. Lisa has helped develop numerous new musicals, including The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz: The Musical, Belles Soeurs: The Musical, The Louder We Get, The Hockey Sweater: A Musical, Piaf/Dietrich, Mythic, April Fools, Josephine: A Musical Cabaret, and Our Little Secret: The 23&Me Musical. Beyond the Segal Centre, Lisa is active in national arts leadership. She has served on the Business for the Arts Canadian Arts Summit Steering Committee and as a jury member for the National Alliance for Musical Theatre Festival of New Musicals.
Emerging Playwright Award
Peer Assessment Panelists: Kacie Hall (Chair), Megan Gail Coles, Marie Leofeli Barlizo
Kacie Hall’s passion lies in theatre and multidisciplinary storytelling. She is currently the Artistic Director for the Northern Arts and Cultural Centre, the Northwest Territories’ only fully-equipped performing arts theatre, where she supports creation from across the North. Although she specializes in theatre directing, Kacie also works as a dramaturg and a deviser, bringing collaborative and story-forward approaches to her work. She is drawn to people-driven pieces that explore connection and what it is that makes us human. Kacie holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dramatic Arts from the University of Lethbridge.
Megan Gail Coles is a second-generation Canadian artist, academic and mother of mixed heritage from the Great Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland/Ktaqmkuk. Her books include Squawk, Satched, Eating Habits of the Chronically Lonesome, and Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club. Her fiction has been a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller prize, a CBC Canada Reads contender and has twice won the BMO Winterset award. Megan has a new novel forthcoming from Bond Street Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House, Spring 2027. She is the Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Poverty Cove Theatre Company in St. John’s with multiple plays in various stages of development. Megan has a BA in English from Memorial University, is a graduate of the National Theatre School’s Playwriting program, holds a MFA from UBC and is currently pursuing a PhD in Humanities from Concordia. Megan currently resides in St. John’s, NL.
Marie Barlizo is a Montreal based playwright, dramaturg, producer, mentor and arts educator. She holds a MFA in Creative Writing from UBC and is the first BIPOC to graduate from the National Theatre School’s Playwriting Program. She is an instructor and playwriting mentor at NTS and dramaturg for Teesri Duniya Theatre’s Fireworks Play Development Program. She is the recipient of the 2022 Bernard Amyot Teaching Award at National Theatre School and the winner of the 2022 Jovette Marchessault award for Playwriting. Recently, she produced her play The Healing @ Centaur Theatre’s 2026 Winterworks Festival. She has also produced her plays at a number of Festivals including rEvolver, Next Stage and the Fringe. Marie has had commissions from Boca del Lupo in partnership with Centaur Theatre to write Truth or Dare for Plays2Perform@Home; Geordie Theatre commissioned and produced her play The Little Mighty Superhero for their 2play Tour, and Teesri Duniya commissioned Marissa’s Promise. She is currently working on her trilogy The Warrior. In the fall, she will develop a full-length version of her play Lucky at Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre with director Derek Chan.
Theatre for Young Audiences Award
Supported by the Estate of Rachel Wyatt
Peer Assessment Panelists: Dennis Foon (Chair), Monica DuFault, Jenna Rodgers
Dennis Foon was co-founder of Vancouver’s acclaimed Green Thumb Theatre and served as Artistic Director for 12 years, where he began writing a body of groundbreaking plays, including New Canadian Kid, Liars, and Mirror Game, that continue to be produced internationally in numerous languages and for which he has received the British Theatre Award, two Chalmers awards, and a Governor General’s nomination for Skin. He was made a lifetime member of the Playwrights Guild of Canada for his “outstanding contribution to Canadian Playwriting and Theatre.” He has received a Gemini, three Leos, and two Writers Guild Awards for his screenplays, including Indian Horse, the Cannes Film Festival winner, Life Above All, A Shine of Rainbows; Little Criminals; Torso; and The Terry Fox Story. His novel, Skud, received the Sheila A. Egoff Book Award, and his fantasy/sci-fi trilogy, The Longlight Legacy, is published in five languages.
Monica Dufault has been Artistic Director of Carousel Players, since 2018, and has directed twelve productions for this award winning theatre for young people. In 2024, Carousel launched the annual Niagara Children’s Festival under Monica’s leadership. She started her career as an actor, performing with The Shaw Festival, The National Arts Centre, Theatre Aquarius, and Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, among others. Monica has acted in many plays for young audiences and was nominated for a Dora Award for her performance in Where the Wild Things Are. As a playwright, she created a stage adaptation of Kenneth Oppel’s book Peg and the Yeti, which has been produced by theatres across Canada. She holds an MA in Comparative Literatures and Arts, is a graduate of the National Theatre School of Canada, and has taught acting and scriptwriting at Brock University. She currently serves as President of the board of ASSITEJ Canada.
Jenna Rodgers (she/her) is a mixed-race Dramaturg and Director. She is the Artistic Director of Concrete Theatre in amiskwaciy-wâskahikan (Edmonton), a TYA company with over 35 years of programming for Albertan youth. She is also the Director of Theatre Alberta’s Artstrek program, which is Alberta’s largest summer camp for teens. Jenna serves as a Board Member for the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas (LMDA) and the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Arts Awards. She was the founding Artistic Director of Chromatic Theatre (Calgary), and served as the Dramaturg for the Playwrights Lab at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity for a decade. Jenna is a recipient of Canada Council’s John Hirsch Prize and is a passionate advocate for equity in the arts, a fierce supporter of new play development, and is learning to raise small responsible humans while maintaining a career in the arts.