Craft Bites International

Antti Hietala

Violence, sexuality and religion are only a few of the deep themes Antti Hietala’s plays deal with. In his works history and the present are equally tangible and a bright, revealing light is focused on the darker side of the human mind. Hietala’s theatrical language is deceptively simple, but carefully thought out. His best-known play Lovely People received the Lea Award for the best Finnish play of 2014. The play is a thriller-like examination of guilt, consequences and the nature of truth. The same themes can be seen also in The Red Horse (2012), that approaches them through questions of spirituality and religion.

Hietala has been involved with Q-Teatteri, one of the most important independent theatre groups in Finland, since its foundation, and was the theatre’s artistic director until 2023.  Besides writing his own plays he has adapted novels from such authors as Dostoyevsky and Alfred Döblin for stage and directed Shakespeare’s and Chekhov’s plays.

 

E.L. Karhu (b. 1982) is a poet of the stage. She writes plays that are clear and crystallized in their language and theatricality, yet full of life. Karhu asks us what madness is and what sanity is, how one can live ethically in their time and community, and what is an individual person’s responsibility for the world. Her works are simultaneously challenging and inspiring for their performers and avoid simplistic interpretations.

Karhu has studied at Theatre Academy in Helsinki and at Hochschule für Schauspielkunst Ernst Busch in Berlin. Her play Kuokkavieraat (On the Grace of Officials, 2007) is a dark comedy about individuals and the system, set amongst asylum seekers and officials. Leipäjonoballadi (Bread Line Ballad, 2008) takes an absurdist approach to poverty and hunger. Valitut (Chosen, 2009) is a triptych about the desire to make to world a better place, told through three generations. kuka tahansa meistä -dokumentti (Any One of Us, 2013) tells the story of an individual falling outside of time. Prinsessa Hamlet (Princess Hamlet, 2016) takes Shakespeare’s play as its starting point to examine insanity, womanhood, loss and remebrance, whereas Eriopis (2020) approaches pain and media narratives through the myth of Medea. Her latest play Veljelleni (To My Brother, 2022) is a study of siblinghood, hierarchies and self-loathing. Karhu also used the play’s material for her acclaimed debut novel of the same title.

 

Saaramaria  Kuittinen  is a poet and a playwright, who wonders what it means to be an artist in the time of collapse. She believes in creativity as a tool for change. She wants to be still, seek and be confused. She relies on creativity as our default position and trusts that meaningfulness can be found again.

fb/ig: saaramariaofficial

www.saaramariakuittinen.com

blogi: https://saaramaria.substack.com/

 

Laura Ruohonen

Whether depicting a seventeenth-century court or a modern apartment block, Laura Ruohonen (b. 1960) creates her own special world in her plays. Ruohonen’s texts are both poetic and down-to-earth, combining humour and tragedy into an organic whole. In her plays, people are inextricably bound to their environment, and an individual’s inner and outer life reflect one another, sometimes getting blended in the process. Ruohonen writes on many levels, and her works can be interpreted in many different ways. At the heart of her works lies a strong ethical core.

Ruohonen’s breakthrough play, both nationally and internationally, was Olga (Olga 1995), which describes the unusual relationship between an old woman and a young petty thief. Among her most popular works are Kuningatar K (Queen C, 2003), about the life of Sweden’s Queen Christina, Yksinen  (Island 2006), set on a remote island, and  Sotaturistit (War Tourists 2008), a black comedy about the corrupting influence of war, that won the Lea Award for the best Finnish play of the year. Ruohonen is also a brilliant children’s author, as evidenced by her innovative children’s musicals Yökyöpelit (The Stayawakes, 2011), Tippukivitapaus (2017, Lea Award winner) and Merimonsterit (2023). Her latest play for adults, Sultanaatti (2022), is a darkly funny study of history, power and gender.

From 2008 to 2013 Laura Ruohonen was the Professor in Drama of the Theatre Academy Helsinki.

 

Saara Turunen (b. 1981), one of the most powerful playwrights of her generation, was born in Eastern Finland. She has graduated from the Theatre Academy Helsinki. At the moment, she works as freelance playwright, author and theatre director in Helsinki and abroad.

Turunen is known for her straightforward and edgy style. She has a distinct, provocative approach to her subjects; femininity, identity, norms and art. Her plays are both playful and aggressive, often related to the world of fairy tale and pop culture. Turunen uses language both to irritate and to charm. Her writing combines trivial verbal approach to clear poetic images.

Turunen´s debut play is the acclaimed work The Bunny Girl (2007) which she followed with The Broken Heart Story (2011), considered by theatre critics as one of the highlights of the year due to its fresh new form. More recently she has been lauded both in Finland and abroad for her visually trilogy The Phantom of Normality (2016), Medusa’s Room (2019, winner of the Lea Award for the best Finnish play of the year) and The Grapes of Reason (2022).

Turunen is also an accomplished novelist. Her debut novel Love/Monster came out in 2015 and won the Helsingin Sanomat Literature Prize, one of the most important literature prizes given annually in Finland.

 

Salla Viikka

In the plays of Salla Viikka (b. 1975) the surface of humdrum everyday life is gradually and almost imperceptibly ripped apart until we are faced with a multitude of new, possible and impossible realities. With her poetic and precise language and a penetrating psychological insight, Viikka gives an unsettling, yet sharply funny twist to the issues of gender, work, aging and emotions – to mention just a few. Viikka is a graduate of Theatre Academy in Helsinki and has also studied graphic design. Her play Aukko won the Lea Award for the best Finnish play of 2015. Her other works include children’s plays Superswitcher (2012) and Tea ja Tyhmentäjä (2020), sci-fi comedy AirB’n’Baby (2017) and Jane! Jane! Jane! (2022), a study of modern womanhood via the figure of Jane Fonda.

 

Lindsey Brown is a New Zealand writer whose passion for the performing arts started at a young
age. Initially a keen musical theatre and improv performer, she then moved into the world of
writing. She obtained a Masters of Scriptwriting from Auckland University of Technology, and
since then hasn’t looked back.
Lindsey has had pieces performed around the world, including London, New York, Hollywood,
Florida, Chicago, Houston, Atlanta, Sydney, Dubai, Queenstown and Auckland.
Successes to date include being the winner of Mixing It Up Productions New York One Act
Competition 2022, 2020 recipient of the PANZ Outstanding Achievement Award, winner of the
2021 Long Beach Playhouse New Works Festival, California, and winner of Show Off 2022 for Camino Real Playhouse, California. Lindsey often favours comedy in her writing, believing that when we laugh, we are most open to learn. It’s also more fun to write! Her plays contain strong roles for women that like to challenge those themes that are universal to us all.

Angie Farrow has been writing plays for most of her adult lif.  She has won numerous international prizes and awards for her plays including first prize at The Inspirato International Playwriting Contest (The Blue Balloon, Toronto, 2013) and The Pen is a Mighty Sword International Playwriting Competition (Despatch, 2007, USA) and Best Drama Script at the Auckland Short and Sweet Festival (Leo Rising, Auckland, 2014). She was awarded ‘Outstanding Contribution to New Zealand Drama’ by the Playwrights’ Association of New Zealand in 2011 and was winner of the Adam Playwriting Award for Best Play by a Woman (Before the Birds, 2018).  She specializes in experimental and community theatre, but she has also written several plays for national radios in the UK and New Zealand.  Her short plays have featured in festivals in India, Malaysia, Canada, Australia, the UK, the USA and Singapore.   Angie has five publications of her plays in Australia and New Zealand including Falling and Other Short Plays which features fourteen of her short works.  These publications demonstrate her willingness to experiment with form and content in order to communicate new ideas through theatre to a range of audiences. 

Sue Glover was born and brought up in Edinburgh, and has lived most of her life in East Fife. She now lives in the East Neuk, close to the beach which was the inspiration and setting for her first theatre play, The Seal Wife. She writes for radio and television as well as theatre. Several of her plays, including The Straw Chair, have been translated and produced abroad.

Her theatre works are: Bondagers, The Straw Chair, and Shetland Saga (all for the Traverse); The Seal Wife (The Little Lyceum); An Island in Largo (The Byre); The Bubble Boy (The Tron); Sacred Hearts (Communicado); Artist Unknown (Citizens TAG); Blow­Outs, Wrecks & Almanacs (Pittenweem Festival); Bear On A Chain (Oran Mor), Marilyn (Citizen & Lyceum). Bondagers won a first in the Thames Television Awards; the television version of The Bubble Boy won awards in Chicago and New York Television Festivals. Work for television, which includes some soap & series work, and some documentaries, also includes original dramas: Homefront, The Spaver Connection, The Bubble Boy, Dear Life, Mrs. Miller & Madame Montand. Adaptations for radio include works by Kipling, Maupassant (one of her favourite authors), Tove Jansson, and Jessie Kesson. Her original plays for radio are: The Watchie, Shiftwork, The Benjamin, The Child & The Journey, The Doll’s Tea­Set, Losing Lottie.

Publications are: Bondagers & The Straw Chair (Methuen); Shetland Saga (Nick Hern); The Bubble Boy, The Seal Wife, Sacred Hearts and Artist Unknown (all Fairplay Press). Bondagers, and The Straw Chair have been translated by the director Guy Pierre Couleau and published by L’Avant Scene Theatre. The Seal Wife, The Straw Chair and Bondagers have been published in Czech, translated by David Drozd. A graduate of Edinburgh eahUniversity, Sue was recently made a fellow of the Association for Scottish Literary Studies.

 

Douglas Maxwell has been one of Scotland’s top playwrights since his debut in 2000. His recent work includes Man’s Best Friend (A Play, A Pie and A Pint, Glasgow), At First I Was Afraid…I Was Petrified! (Wonder Fools) and Orphans (National Theatre of Scotland). Previous plays include I Can Go Anywhere (Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh), Charlie Sonata (The Royal Lyceum Edinburgh), The Whip Hand (Traverse Theatre/Birmingham Rep), Yer Granny (National Theatre of Scotland) and Fever Dream: Southside (The Citizens, Glasgow). His many other plays include Decky Does a Bronco, Mancub, Promises Promises (staged in New York as The Promise) and A Respectable Widow Takes to Vulgarity. Translations of his work have been professionally produced in Germany, Norway, Hong Kong, New York, Chicago, Holland, Canada, Sweden, New Zealand, Wales, Japan, France, Belgium and South Korea, where his debut play Our Bad Magnet ran for over ten years. His plays are published by Oberon books at Bloomsbury. His first collection of work focuses on his writing for younger audiences. As well as Decky Does a Bronco and Mancub that volume also contains Too Fast, The Mother Ship and Helmet. Douglas lives on the Southside of Glasgow with his wife and two daughters. douglasmaxwell.co.uk

 

Adura Onashile is an award-winning Glasgow based Theatre artist and filmmaker. In 2020, she wrote and directed her screen debut, Expensive Shit, which premiered at BFI London Film Festival 2020 and was BAFTA nominated. Her debut feature, Girl, written and directed by Adura, premiered at Sundance Festival 2023 as part of the World Dramatic Competition, was the opening film at Glasgow Film Festival 2023 and is due to be the opening film at Black Star Film festival 2023. She is a 2021 screen star of tomorrow and has been a member of BBC writer’s room. She played the title role, Medea in the National Theatre of Scotland and Edinburgh International festival 2022 acclaimed production. Previously she has presented two productions, HeLa and Expensive S**t for The Edinburgh fringe festival, winning a Fringe First, Edinburgh Guide Best Scottish Contribution to Drama and Total and Amnesty nominations. Both shows toured nationally and internationally supported by the British Council. She also wrote and directed Ghosts, an AR immersive site specific tour of the Merchant city with The National Theatre of Scotland. She is developing new work across Theatre and Film.

 

Sara Shaarawi is a playwright from Cairo, living in Glasgow. Her work has been performed across Scotland and the UK, as well as Egypt, Uganda, and South Africa. She has written work for the stage as well as for audio, and has recently worked with companies such as Wonder Fools and the Citizens Theatre to create work with and for young people. She enjoys working in a variety of contexts and finds the diversity in writing for performance thrilling. Writing credits include: Niqabi Ninja (IAP/Hewar Theatre), Sister Radio (Stellar Quines/Pitlochry Festival Theatre), PAL: Your AI Care Companion (Citizens Young Company), The Day the Stampers United (Wonder Fools). sarashaarawi.com

 

Mosa Neema Rabannye is a South African woman of trans experience. She is a writer, theatre practitioner, language scientist and multidisciplinary artist who has explored the realms of storytelling through various mediums such as literature, plays, films, painting and radio. She is a Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study (JIAS) Alumni. She graduated with a qualification in Language Practice and Media Studies from Central University of Technology

She has graced audiences at the Vrystaat Kunstefees, and she stars in several local short films.

Her literary work has been published in Isele Magazine and New Valley Zine. When you run into her, ask her about the debut novel she is working on – she reckons you will love it.

Find her on Instagram: moetsalibe_

 

 

 

 

 

Peter Solis Nery – Poet, Playwright, fictionist, author and filmmaker

Peter is the winner of 28 national and international literary awards (21 Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature including the Hall of Fame among them), author of 35 books including a textbook on Creative Writing, and the first Filipino author invited to the Sharjah International Book Fair in the United Arab Emirates.

He has been writing for the newspapers in Western Visayas since 2000, and is the recipient of the 2023 UP Distinguished Alumnus Award in Championing Hiligaynon Literature and Regional Culture.

His award-winning plays include Tic-Tac-Toe (2016), Gladiolas (2014), Agimat (2014), If the Shoe Fits: Or, The Five Men Imelda Marcos Meets in Heaven (2011), The Wide Ionian Sea (2010),  and The Passion of Jovita Fuentes (2008).

 

Maja Ardal

George Luscombe Award for Mentorship in Theatre.
Maja is an Icelandic /Canadian. Her first play, Midnight Sun, was produced by Tarragon Theatre and The National Arts Centre. Wishful Seeing, and The Hero of Hunter Street, were produced by 4thLine Theatre, known for epic productions. Maja is developing two more scripts for 4thLine. She wrote HER2 a play for ten women, produced by Nightwood/Buddies.
Maja’s solo plays include You Fancy Yourself, Actor/playwright *,toured Canada, the UK and was a “Critics’’ Pick” at Edinburgh Fringe. The sequel, The Cure for Everything, toured Canada and to Los Angeles. She currently performs She Visits. She researched and developed One Thing Leads to Another, theatre for babies **, and the sequel, You and I,* Maja continues to perform recently in For Both Resting and Breeding, (tour to Australia, upcoming Chile and Argentina) She was Artistic Director of Young People’s Theatre
*-Dora Awards

 

Marty Chan

Marty Chan writes plays for adults, books for kids, and social media posts for fun. He’s best known for his cross-cultural hit play, Mom, Dad, I’m Living with a White Girl, which toured across Canada and received an Off-Broadway production in 2004. He also wrote a thriller, The Bone House, which has been produced around the world. He currently works and lives in Edmonton with his wife Michelle and their two cats, Hugo and Minnie.

 

Anna Chatterton

Anna Chatterton is a librettist, playwright and performer based in Hamilton. She is a
two-time finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama; Within the Glass (2017) and Gertrude and Alice (cowritten with Evalyn Parry, 2018). Anna’s other plays include Quiver (Nightwood Theatre), Children of Fire (cowritten with Shahrzad Arshadi, Nightwood Theatre/Aluna Theatre), Switched (Theatre Aquarius/Theatre PANIK/Industry) and The Horse and His Boy (The Shaw Festival). She has co-created and performed six plays with the Independent Aunties, produced by Buddies in Bad Times, The Theatre Centre and Theatre Passe Muraille. Anna has been a playwright in residence at Tarragon Theatre, Tapestry Opera and Nightwood Theatre.

As a librettist Anna’s opera work has been produced by the Canadian Opera Company, Centre for Contemporary Opera (NYC), Opera Louisianne (Baton Rouge), Saratoga Opera, Opera Maine (Portland, ME), The California Institute of the Arts, Third Eye Theatre (Chicago) and Tapestry Opera. Her opera Sweat (Bicycle Opera) was recently made into a film and won ‘Best Narrative Feature’ from the LA Independent Women Film Awards.

Anna’s work has been nominated for a Juno Award, and five Dora Mavor Moore Awards, winning the 2018 Outstanding Production of an Opera. She has also been awarded a Toronto Theatre Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress and named a top ten Toronto Theatre Artist by NOW Magazine. Anna has her MFA in Creative Writing from U of Guelph, and teaches theatre courses at McMaster University, Humber College and Sheridan College.

Michelle Clemens

Michelle Clemens is a writer, actor and producer born in St. John’s. She wrote and produced the comedy, “Boomerang” at The Barbara Barrett Theatre, in December 2022. Michelle wrote and directed the short film, “The Odds of That”, which was released May 2023. She has one play, “Mummering, Mischief and Murder” in early production planning, for December 2023. She has written two scripts in 2022 for 48 -Hour Film Challenges and one in 2023 for the Nickel Film Festival Festival Science Fiction Challenge titled “Seeds of Silence”. Michelle is in the development stage for her next short film.

Michelle won a Newfoundland and Labrador Arts and Letters in 2023 for “Showdown” in the Dramatic Script category and for “Ready, Aim” in the Senior Poetry category in 2022. Her short story “Murder on Milbank” won a place at the Memorial University’s /WANL Storytelling event in May of 2021. Her essay, “The Christmas Stocking”, was published in the Writer’s Alliance of Newfoundland and Labrador’s E-Zine for December 2021. Michelle has recently hosted events for St. John’s Storytelling and has performed her own works “The Ruin” and “Bra Burning” at their fall Festival. She will present new material in The St. John’s Story Telling Festival in October of 2023. She wrote one act plays for the Children’s Theatre company, Zoo & the Moose.

 

Beverley Cooper

Beverley Cooper is an award-winning playwright, dramaturge and teacher. She has written for TV, film and extensively for CBC radio drama, twice being nominated for Writers’ Guild of Canada Awards. Her plays have been produced widely across Canada. They include Thin Ice (co-written with Banuta Rubess, Chalmers/Dora Award), The Lonely Diner, Janet Wilson Meets the Queen (nominated for Prix Rideau Award) and If Truth Be Told. Innocence Lost: A Play about Steven Truscott was a finalist for the 2009 Governor General’s Literary Award. Her most recent play: The Other: A Strange Christmas Tale was produced by 4th Line Theatre. Beverley trained as an actor and has performed in TV, film and in theatres across Canada. Beverley is a frequent director of audio books for Penguin Random House, including titles by Margaret Atwood, Ann-Marie MacDonald and Miriam Toews. Beverley holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph and has presented her work at Women Playwrights International conferences in Mumbai, Stockholm, Cape Town and Santiago. She is on the faculty of the Humber School for Writers. Beverley was the coordinator of The CASA Project, a charitable arm of the Playwrights Guild of Canada that supports women playwrights in South Africa and is the 2022 recipient of the Bra D’or Award: an award that recognizes an individual for their efforts in supporting women playwrights.

 

Mark Crawford

Mark Crawford is a playwright and actor. He is the author of several plays: Stag and Doe; Bed and Breakfast; The Birds and the Bees; Boys, Girls, and Other Mythological Creatures; The New Canadian Curling Club; Chase the Ace; and The Gig. As one of Canada’s most popular playwrights, his work has been produced across the country and around the world in Australia, New Zealand, Poland, England, and the United States. He’s been nominated for the Playwrights’ Guild of Canada Comedy Award and long-listed for the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour. Mark’s plays are published by Scirocco Drama.
As an actor, he has performed at theatres from coast to coast. Recently, he spent over a year performing Harry Potter and the Cursed Child with Mirvish Productions in Toronto, and appeared in the World Premiere of Chronicles of Sarnia at the Blyth Festival. Mark grew up on his family’s farm near Glencoe, Ontario and now lives in Stratford.

 

Alexis Diamond

Based in Tiohtiá:ke/Mooniyang/Montreal, Alexis Diamond (she/her) is a theatre artist, opera and musical librettist, translator, dramaturg and theatre curator working in both English and French. She creates works for a wide range of audiences, from toddlers, to school-aged children, to all ages, to adults only, which have garnered awards, residencies, and attention at home and abroad. Alternately playful, poetic and profound, her texts and performances break open the stories we inherit and the myths we perpetuate to create something true and new.

Alexis’ relationship with Finland dates back to her two-month residency at the internationally renowned Saari Residence in 2016, where she initially developed White Hotel. Her time in Finland had a profound impact on her work, artistic practice and future collaborations. Since that date, Alexis has been working with contemporary-circus artist Marjukka Erälinna to develop their innovative take on circus-theatre, all while continuing to write plays, operas and theatre translations of award-winning Québécois texts.

Current and upcoming works include: NZINGA, co-written with Marie Louise Bibish Mumbu in collaboration with Tatiana Zinga Botao, premiering this November at Montreal’s acclaimed Centre du Théâtre d’Aujourd’hui; an installation-opera about the “colonization” of Mars with composer Tim Brady; the translation of Tout inclus (All-inclusive) François Grisé’s probing and poetic documentary-theatre investigation into ageing.

Alexis was a finalist for the 2020 Governor General’s Award for her translation of Pascal Brullemans’ plays for young audiences, Amaryllis and Little Witch (Playwrights Canada Press). Strange Land, winner of the Jewish Canadian Playwright Award and the prequel to White Hotel, can be found at the Canadian Play Outlet.

 

Meghan Gardiner

Meghan is an actor and playwright who has written plays for Green Thumb Theatre, Carousel Theatre, Shameless Hussy Productions, the Gateway Theatre, and independently toured her one woman show Dissolve for over twelve years. Meghan was nominated for the YWCA Women of Distinction Awards in 2011 and received the Sydney Risk Award for Emerging playwright at the 2012 Jessie Awards. She has written two screenplays; both garnering her screenwriting nominations at BC’s Leo Awards and is currently working on commissions for the Arts Club, Carousel Theatre and Arts Umbrella. She lives in Vancouver with her husband and daughter.

 

 

Thalia Gonzalez Kane

Thalía is an award-winning, Ecuadorian-Canadian, queer, multidisciplinary artist and theatre scholar. She has worked as a performer, voice-over artist, playwright, director, designer, composer, choreographer, and producer in Canada, Czechia, England, Ireland, Scotland, Sweden and the USA. Thalia’s writing has been published by University of Toronto Press, Playwrights Canada Press, Intermission Magazine, and Canadian Theatre Review. In 2023, she did a six-city international tour of the award-winning, critically-acclaimed play At Birth, which she co-wrote, designed, produced and performed in. Thalia was named a LGBTQIA+ artist to watch in 2020 by Playbill for her solo show A Drunk Lesbian Love Affair. She is on the steering committee of the ACTRA National 2SLGBTQIA+ committee, a councillor for ACTRA Toronto and ACTRA National, co-chair of outACTRAto, co-founder of Got Your Back Canada, and the Artistic Director of Crave Productions. In her spare time, Thalia is a passionate volunteer and amateur astronomer. @teakane /www.craveartmakeart.com

Helen Ho

Helen Ho (she/her) is an award-winning emerging playwright and stage manager from Toronto. She received the first place prize for both the 2022 University of Toronto Spotlight Playwriting competition as well as the Toronto Fringe 2023 New Play contest. She was also a playwright for Driftwood’s Beyond the Bard 2022 unit. Her favourite stories to tell are love stories.

 

 

 

Marcia Johnson

Marcia Johnson is the 2022 recipient of the Cayle Chernin Woman of the Year award and the 2021 Playwrights Guild of Canada Lifetime Member honoree. She has been a proud member since 2003.
Serving Elizabeth premiered at Western Canada Theatre in February 2022, co-produced by Thousand Islands Playhouse. The TIP production, in October 2021, was delayed by a full year due to the pandemic. That same year, the Stratford Festival and Belfry Theatre produced the play. In 2022, Serving Elizabeth had its US premiere at Peterborough Players in New Hampshire followed by a production at Theatre Aquarius.
Other plays include the Zoom play A Magical Place for the Stratford Festival and National Arts Centre. Among her stage plays are Binti’s Journey (based on ‘The Heaven Shop’ by Deborah Ellis) – Theatre Direct/Black Theatre Workshop, MTYP; Courting Johanna (adapted from ‘Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage by Alice Munro) – Blyth Festival; Late – Obsidian Theatre.

Marcia has written short operas for Tapestry Opera including the Dora Award-nominated My Mother’s Ring with composer Stephen A. Taylor. They also created a full-length opera Paradises Lost, adapted from Ursula K. Le Guin’s novella of the same title at the University of Illinois in 2012. The next year, a concert performance of it was presented by Musical Works at the SummerWorks Festival.

Also an actor, Marcia recently performed in Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time at Sudbury Theatre Centre and the world premiere of Wesley Colford’s The Beloved at Highland Arts Theatre in Sydney, Nova Scotia.

 

Chadia Kikondjo

hello! my name is chadia and I am a Burundian/agender /queer artist currently based in Tiohtià:ke. I received my B.A in theatre (2019). Right after graduation, I received opportunities to work with different artists and perform consistently since 2019. Since then, I’ve been focusing on creating content, I as a performer would love to do. I just recently received the award for “Most Promising English Text” at MTL Fringe (2023), for my play, it didn’t work. The year prior my first play, niggas in pontreal at MLTFringe (2022), where I wrote, directed, co-produced, and was ⅕ of the performers. 3X Montreal Fringe Frankie Awards nominee. I strive to create and support works that instigate conversations and challenge societal norms.

Website: chadia.ca Instagram: @dissruptivtheatre, @chadiaisdissruptiv

Katherine Koller

Katherine Koller writes for stage, screen and page. Her first plays, Cowboy Boots and a Corsage and Magpie, were for CBC radio. Her full-length stage plays include her Alberta LandWorks Trilogy: Coal Valley, The Seed Savers and Alberta Playwriting Competition winner, Last Chance Leduc. Her web series, about Edmonton youth changing their world, is at sustainablemeyeg.ca. Art Lessons, her novel, was a Finalist for the Edmonton Book Prize and the Alberta Readers’ Choice Award. Her story collection Winning Chance won a 2020 High Plains Book Award and the Exporting Alberta Award. Her flash fiction won a Strands International Competition in 2021 and her latest play, Riverkeeper, was a Finalist in the Jane Chambers Award, The Judith Royer Award, and the Alberta Playwriting Competition. Katherine has co-produced Edmonton Script Salon, a monthly new play reading series, since 2014. www.katherinekoller.ca

 

Alison Lawrence

Alison is a writer, actor, independent theatre producer. She often works collaboratively with theatre creators Annabel Fitzsimmons and Mary Francis Moore. The three women co-created and performed for many years in their play Bittergirl across Canada, in New York City and in London England. They also wrote the book Bittergirl – Getting Over Getting Dumped which was published by Penguin in Canada and Plume in the US. Their musical version of Bittergirl has been performed in multiple productions across Canada, the most recent closing last month at Drayton Entertainment in St Jacob’s, Ontario.

As a solo playwright, Alison has written plays ranging from The Thing Between Us, a play about childhood, toxic relationships and memory, and Piece by Piece, a meditation on grief, to the much-produced comedy The Catering Queen, and And All For Love, a play about the first actresses on the Restoration stage. In March 2020 her play Too Close to Home opened and closed at Theatre Orangeville due to COVID-19. She has recently developed The Right, about Medical Assistance in Dying, with Toronto’s Studio 180 Theatre, and her play Onion Skins and Peach Fuzz: The Farmerettes, was commissioned by 4th Line Theatre and the Blyth Festival.

bittergirl and The Catering Queen are published by Scirocco Drama. Alison has contributed personal essays to the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail and the National Post. She is an alumna of the Banff Playwrights Lab and a MacDowell Fellow.

 

Julia Lederer

Julia Lederer is an internationally acclaimed writer. Her plays have been produced all over North America and in Europe. Her work has been described as: “wonderfully weird, piercingly poetic and unexpectedly moving” (Crain’s Chicago); “laced with sophisticated poetry and wry insight” (LA Times), and as, “ris[ing] to a rare level of universal truth, all while making us laugh. A lot.” (NewCity Chicago). In 2023, she was in residence at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, and NotaBle Acts’ Playwright in Residence in New Brunswick, developing her new play, I AM AN ISLAND.

As a screenwriter, Julia’s films have been selections at major festivals internationally, including TIFF, Palm Springs, and SXSW — where she premiered her first feature film, WITH LOVE AND A MAJOR ORGAN (her adaptation of her hit play). She has been short-listed for development programs at the Sundance Film Festival, the BBC, and was part of CBC’S emerging writers room, working on KIM’S CONVENIENCE. Julia has also published poetry (I’VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT VANISHING with Baseline Press), created narrative audio work for podcasts in the United States and the UK, and is an award-winning copywriter. She approaches everything with an innate curiosity about the world and how strange it is to be a human here. www.julialederer.ca

 

Natalie Meisner

Natalie Meisner is a playwright and poet from the Mi’kma’ki /South Shore of Nova Scotia and served as Calgary/ Mohkinstsis 5th Poet Laureate. It Begins in Salt (2023) and Baddie One Shoe (2019) are spokenword poetry. LEGISLATING LOVE: THE EVERETT KLIPPERT STORY is based on the true story of the beloved Calgary bus driver instrumental in decriminalizing homosexuality. SPEED DATING FOR SPERM DONORS was a hit at Lunchbox & Neptune. Double Pregnant: Two Lesbians Make a Family topped non-fiction lists and My Mommy, My Mama My Brother & Me is her children’s book about a two-mom biracial family finding community. She is a wife, mom to two great boys and a Full Prof at MRU. She joins PARC playwright’s retreat to work on her play SUBHUMAN. A play inspired by the true story of LGBTQIA2S+ women who served in the Royal Canadian Navy, listening for Submarines off the Atlantic Coast. Meisner is a full Prof at MRU in Calgary, a wife and mom to two great boys.

 

Thembelihile Moyo

Born and raised in Zimbabwe, Thembelihile Moyo is one of eight children, and the mother of two daughters..
Thembelihile’s plays include Colour Blue (2010), Let it Out (2014), The Prophetic Place and the one-act play, Who Said I Don’t Want to Dance, about a young widow and the challenges she faces after the death of her husband. The latter play was presented by Philadelphia’s Pulley and Buttonhole Theatre in their 2018/19 season. Her play, I Want to Fly, about an African girl who wants to be a pilot, is anthologized in Contemporary Plays by African Women (Methuen, 2019) and Extracts- Cambridge University Press “Cambridge Lower Secondary English Stage 9 & Pakistan English Textbook ,UK,2020: It had its first Canadian reading online in February 2022, presented by Regina’s Globe Theatre. Prophetic Place,publication- University of Toronto Press, 2022
New Plays “It’s Just Black Hair” 2022 and “The Dark Bridge” 2022.Virtual Bondage full reading in March 2024 Belfry Theatre 2024. UnBroken Chains of Ndondo 2023 Crafts Bite International reading. Writer in residence at the University of Victoria 2022-2023. Thembelihle is actively involved with Women Playwrights International (WPI) and the African Women’s Playwrights Network (AWPN). Thembie also writes for Zimbabwean television, with credits including Sibahle Nje (2011), winner of the Best Screenwriter 2012 Amakhosi Cultural Arts Award; Isipho Sami (2015); and Ezakomatshelela (2018). She has also written the feature film, Nomhle (2011). She is currently writer, creative action at the department of Equity, Human Rights office, University of Victoria.

 

Michael Ross Albert

Described by the Toronto Star as “one of Toronto’s most exciting playwrights,” Michael Ross Albert is a Dora Award-nominated writer and indie theatre producer whose work has been staged across Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. His plays have been produced in professional theatres, international festivals, black boxes, basements, bars, Zoom meetings, conference rooms, and tents in both small towns and big cities.

Michael’s recent production credits include Beautiful Renegades, a historical fiction inspired by Toronto’s avant-garde dance community in the 1970s (commissioned by Canadian dance icon Peggy Baker), as well as When I’m Gone (Mountain Movers Theatre Company), and Two Minutes to Midnight (The Assembly Theatre). His work has been presented in multiple Fringe festivals, including Edinburgh, Brighton, FringeNYC. Five of his plays were staged in the Toronto Fringe Festival, including The Huns, Anywhere (both: Patron’s Pick and Best of Fringe), and most recently, Good Old Days.

In association with the Storefront Theatre, Michael produced the world premiere of his play Tough Jews. The production was nominated for six Dora Awards including Outstanding New Play and Outstanding Production and received the My Entertainment World Critic’s Choice Award for Outstanding New Play.

Michael has an MFA in Playwriting from the Actors Studio Drama School and has taught new play development at the University of Waterloo.

 

Dalbir Singh

Dalbir Singh is a Ph.D. candidate in Performance Studies at the University of Toronto. He taught courses there as well as at the University of Waterloo and the University of Guelph. At Waterloo, he taught the first theatre course exclusively focused on racial identity and Canadian theatre. He has edited five collections of plays and critical essays on topics including Tamil culture and identity, post-​colonial theatre, South Asian Canadian drama, and queer Canadian theatre. His play “Five Red Hands” was a finalist for the Mario-Fratti Political Play Award at the Castillo Theatre on 42nd Street in New York City. It was also a top three finalist for Playwrights Guild of Canada’s Tom Hendry Award for Best Unproduced Canadian Play of the Year. Singh’s latest play “Pears” is set during the 1985 Air India bombing and is focused on a young woman stalking a family that have moved into her childhood home.

 

Valerie Sing Turner

Valerie Sing Turner is a Vancouver-based multidisciplinary artist who performs, writes, directs, dramaturges, and produces. Her 2012 playwriting debut, CONFESSIONS OF THE OTHER WOMAN, is an interdisciplinary work integrating dance, contemporary movement, text, and interactive projection. She is currently co-directing an animated film adaptation of a chamber operetta, DID I JUST SAY THAT?, for which she wrote the libretto; collaborating with composer collective Chroma Mixed Media on VOICELESS, an opera-based augmented reality (AR) project; and preparing for an early 2024 workshop of her 10-actor play, IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOUNTAINS, which centres 3 generations of an Indigenous, Chinese-Canadian, and Japanese-Canadian family.

A recipient of the Enbridge playRites Award for Emerging Canadian Playwright, the John Moffat + Larry Lillo Prize, and UBCP/ACTRA’s International Women’s Day Award (for “outstanding contributions to the Union, the industry, and causes of social justice”), Valerie was honoured with a BC Lieutenant Governor’s Platinum Jubilee Arts & Music Award in 2022 in recognition of her “exceptional contributions to the arts”. The founder/Co-Artistic Producer of Visceral Visions, a Vancouver company that develops and produces new work by BIPOC artists, Valerie is also founder and creative visionary of CultureBrew.Art, a web platform featuring a Canada-wide searchable database of Indigenous and racialized artists working in the performing, literary, media, and visual arts, as well as a leading voice on issues of equity and decolonization in the Canadian arts sector. She is a member of Canadian Actors’ Equity, UBCP/ACTRA, SOCAN, and Playwrights Guild of Canada, and an alumnus of Banff’s Cultural Leadership program.