Adrienne Buell
Andy is a student in their 4th year at Westmount High School, looking for involvement in theater projects outside of the school drama curriculum. They are testing their talents and abilities as a writer and creator through this workshop, and hoping to create something easily relatable to other people their age.
Play in development: GNDR is meant to be a quick look into the life of an agender teenager named Taylor. It hopes to explore themes of anxiety, identity, and validation that emulate realistic teenage experiences, and comment on transphobia and representation and their impacts.
Alexandra Maynard
Alexandra is a graduate of York University with a B.A. in Theatre, majoring in Creative Ensemble and Playwriting. She received a certificate in ballet, modern, and folkloric dance from internationally L’École supérieure de ballet du Québec. Recent credits include Janet in Imperial’s annual The Rocky Horror Picture Show (2015), producer of Anytime, Anywhere’s Heartlines in London, England (2014), and an assistant director in Theatre@York’s Murder in the Cathedral in Toronto (2013).
Play in development: Trench centers around the idea that faith does not define you, you define your faith. A two person show that takes place in present-day Montreal.
Alyssa Harms-Wiebe
Alyssa is an emerging director. Recent credits include EMUNAH (2014) an original co-creation produced at the Montreal Fringe, and If Phones Could Talk (2013), a play she also wrote and produced at Mainline Theatre. Most recently, she published her first children’s book, Megan’s Meltdown (2015), on climate change.
Play in development: Camelopardalis – Lila, a young giraffe, wanders a few steps too far from home, following her intrigue of distant star-lit skies. Lost and vulnerable, Lila faces a challenge: letting herself be boxed in by the desert or embracing new discoveries about the way she was made.
Caroline Thibault
Caroline was an assistant director and performer at Ici par les arts. Her passion for art comes from a desire to support people to believe they deserve to be loved.
Play in development: 10 Times I Wasn’t Myself looks at different characters who are forcing themselves to act one way when they feel differently. A plant that pretends to be a person, a woman that pretends to be a man, and many other stories of people attempting to become self-actualized.
Devin MacKinnon
Devin was born and raised on Prince Edward Island. He completed an undergraduate degree in Psychology at UPEI before being accepted to the National Theatre School of Canada. This is his first self-created work.
Play in development: Starlight Tours – Based on true cases of police neglect and brutality in First Nation communities; a police officer is interrogated over his involvement in the death of an elder man, abandoned in the cold of night in handcuffs.
Justin Shaw
Justin is an actor and stand-up comic from the Prince Edward Island. He is studying acting at the National Theatre School of Canada. When he’s not working on scripts, or Tweeting his life away (@Wrath_of_Shaw), Justin can be found performing stand-up comedy at various clubs and bars around the city.
Play in development: From Parts Unknown explores what it means to step out of one’s comfort zone and take your life into your own hands to discover happiness. For the character of Charles Macklin, this means leaving his job as a teacher to become a professional wrestler in Mexico.
Kalale Dalton-Lutale
Kalale is a writer and performer from Toronto currently finishing her degree in Creative Writing at Concordia University. Her work explores the various modalities of performance as well as narratives that involve intersectional ideas of queer, feminist and racialize experiences.
Play in development: Cry Baby – So you have these memories, right? All sorta hanging above your head like tangled mobiles. Pieces of songs that remind you of your dad in college, the smell of chlorine, your mother’s hand writing, a card you made for your sister. I will overwhelm you, I will tell you, I will unravel, I will show you, I will show you, I will show you.
Kenny Streule
Kenny’s passion for creating has led him to establish his own theatre company Plaid Thursday Productions. Recently, Kenny was in Chocolate Moose Theatre Company’s production of Conspiracy! Presently, Kenny hosts the crowd-pleasing improv show, Wild Fucking Improvisers in Action and has written a play City Boy that will be having a public reading during Shorstanding Festival.
Play in development: Mal Understood is based on his own challenges of being bilingual in a monolingual world. Three versions of the same man; Kindergarten, Elementary, and High School all dealing with an evolving insecurity from living between two languages.
Laurent McCuaig-Pitre
Laurent is a graduate of Dawson College’s Professional Theatre and is currently in his last year of Playwriting at Concordia University. His theatre company, 32-Hour Theatre, experienced a phenomenal debut at MainLine with his play If Only. 32-HTC also produced his play, This is Not a Play in the Montreal Fringe.
Play in development: A Perfect Picture – At the age of 33, after soaring to the heights of recognition with a Pulitzer prize for his picture of the vulture and the child, Kevin Carter committed suicide. The play invites the audience into Kevin’s world through the sardonic and insightful host “The Vulture”.
Margaret Rose
Margaret is a Torontonian currently living in Montreal. She is on her gap year exploring new places and things. Next year she plans on attending theatre school and continue to write stories.
Play in development: SIDE B – And then she woke up. Realized that she didn’t quite remember who she was, what she wanted or where she was going. A young woman caught in the limbo of her own life.
Nick Guénette Vaudry
Over the last two years Nick has had the opportunity to take part in theatre workshops at Ici par les arts, and worked on developing an adaptation of George Orwell’s Animal Farm for the stage.
Play in development: Les Conformistes – This work explores the societal pressures on individuals who are perceived as misfits and how sometimes they are forced to conform to the norm.
Rachel Mutombo
Rachel graduated from John Abbott College’s professional acting program and is currently in her second year of acting training at the National Theatre School of Canada. She had her first piece of writing published, a short story called Café Müller. Most recently, Rachel played Lady Olivia in Repercussion Theatre’s production of Twelfth Night (2015). One day in the cafeteria line, Djanet Sears told her to continue to write and create opportunities for herself… a year and half later, that is what she’s doing.
Play in development: Black Suburbia tells the story of a family that escapes political unrest in Congo, 10,000 km away to safety in Canada – expectations shift when they are faced with a new reality in a foreign country.
Rhiannon Collett
Rhiannon grew up in North Vancouver and moved to Montreal to study at Concordia University (Honours English Literature and Creative Writing, Major in Theatre). In March 2015 she wrote and performed in her solo show, GIRLHOUSE (Mainline Gala for Student Drama). She recently had the opportunity to read her monologue, Celia as part of Unplugged festival. Her writing has been featured in the Globe and Mail. She was awarded the Jack Shadbolt Award for Multiple Arts Excellence in 2013.
Play in development: Miranda and Dave begin again – Miranda is curating a used underwear archive. Her boyfriend Dave is stalking women-experimentally. Her sister Eden is tired of only giving blowjobs. Is this the end, or just the beginning? This play will premiere at the Montreal Fringe Festival 2016.
Trevor Barrette
Trevor is a Montreal-based actor, director and playwright. A graduate of John Abbott College’s professional theatre, he most recently spent a year studying Classics and Drama at the University of Toronto where he was awarded the 2015 Robert Gill Award for Directing. In 2011 he founded Kaleidoscope Theatre Montreal (2015 Frankie for Most Promising Local English Company) and has directed their eight productions including his own bilingual Mixtape and musicals To Be and Captain Aurora: A Superhero Musical.
Play in development: Memento Mori – On the other side, Morty prepares tea and cookies and patiently waits for his ragtag group to arrive, to share their stories and life experiences. They have only one thing in common, they’re dead. Come share with us.
Yousef Kadoura
Yousef is an actor and a student at the National Theatre School of Canada. Born in Dearborn, Michigan, and raised in Ottawa surrounded by literature and political discussion, Yousef has worked alongside disability groups and youth mentorship initiatives. He has since dedicated himself to performance and storytelling as tools for education and social education.
Play in development: One Night is a collision of a thousand and one years of fantasy and reality. As a young man returns to his family’s middle-eastern home, haunted by history and driving himself towards destruction.
