Stageworthy

In this, the 300th episode of Stageworthy, host Phil Rickaby presents a retrospective of some of his favourite episodes from the past 5 years. There have been so many conversations that it would be impossible to present all of the favourites, so we've narrowed it down to 6: Paul Sun-Hyung Lee, Siobhan Richardson, Philip Akin, Helen Knight, Diana Tso, and Tanisha Taitt. You'll find links to the full episodes of the selected episodes below. Paul Sun-Hyung Lee https://stageworthypodcast.com/62-paul-sun-hyung-lee/ Siobhan Richardson https://stageworthypodcast.com/70-siobhan-richardson/ Philip Akin https://stageworthypodcast.com/152-philip-akin/ Helen Knight https://stageworthypodcast.com/216-helen-knight/ Diana Tso https://stageworthypodcast.com/51-diana-tso/ Tanisha Taitt https://stageworthypodcast.com/210-tanisha-taitt/ Support Stageworthy Tip Jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/stageworthy Merch: https://shop.stageworthyproductions.com/

Neurodiversity & Mental Health in theatre, a conversation with Alia Ettienne, Emerjade Simms, and Victoria Urquhart. Emerjade Simms is a Jamaican-Canadian actor and storyteller. She is a graduate of the Acting program at the University of Windsor and holds a BFA degree. Emerjade is also a 2016/17 graduate of the Mechanicals program at Factory Theatre. In her career as an actor so far, she has worked with many wonderful people and companies. Select theatre credits include Peter Pan (Bad Hats/Soulpepper), School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play (Obsidian/Nightwood), Wounded Soldiers (4th Line), The Bird Killer (Let Me In). Television credits include Forbidden, Fear They Neighbor, See No Evil and Paranormal 911. Emerjade enjoys napping in her down time and thanks her family for inspiring her daily. Twitter: @emerbabe Instagram: @em.er.jade Alia Ettienne is a theatre writer, actor, performer and facilitator from Toronto, ON. Ettienne is of Afro Caribbean descent which often influences her performances a

Uche Ama is a Black queer performer, actor & vocalist born on the indigenous land called Tkaronto. She is passionate about cathartic art that intrigues and makes you ask questions. A 2019 Dora nominated graduate of the Music Theatre Performance program at St Clair College and an alumni of  'Broadway Theatre Project', her previous performances include 21 Black Futures (Obsidian Theatre & CBC Arts),The Negroes Are Congregating (Piece Of Mine Arts) & Obeah Opera (Asah Productions). www.ucheamaartist.com Instagram: @ucheama89 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/uamaartist Support Stageworthy Tip Jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/stageworthy Merch: https://shop.stageworthyproductions.com/

Erin Jones wrote Time Limits Dropped on Easter Sunday especially for the digital Toronto Fringe Festival.  As a playwright, she is taking an anti-oppressive stance and is focused on exploring and developing untold stories in Canadian history that represent BIPOC folx with dignity.  She is thrilled and humbled to have had talented and supportive people in her world.  Erin Jones is a writer, actor, playwright and emerging director. She has performed in theatre and independent films across the GTA. She supports performing arts behind the scenes with publicity, articles, newsletters, social media, grant writing, governance, photography, director hiring committees, and Respect in the Workplace committees.    Her short story script Lovingly Yours, Olive was recently featured in the Toronto Fringe Next Stage Community Booster Series.  She also recently directed Exit:  An Illusion with Shadowpath Theatre Productions. Time Limits Dropped on Easter Sunday Wonder Jones Productions is a collective of talented artists who

Steven Griffin is a Canadian filmmaker and theatre creator. He is currently based in Toronto. He has directed numerous projects, including short films that have seen screenings at the Boston Shorts Film Festival, Toronto Arthouse Film Festival and Kingston Canadian Film Festival. His theatre work has been shown at the Toronto Fringe Theatre Festival, Toronto Queer Theatre Festival and soon to be the Hamilton Fringe Festival. His style revolves around the still and the deliberate, based firmly in an art history background and trusting that the decision to not do something within a frame is just as important as the choice to do something.   stevenpgriffin.ca Black Deer In Blizzard blackdeerinblizzard.squarespace.com Instagram: @blackdeerinblizzard Support Stageworthy Tip Jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/stageworthy Merch: https://shop.stageworthyproductions.com/

Megan Legesse will be playing the role of Katrina in the production of Black Deer in Blizzard. Some of her credits include Lion Womxn (Summerworks 2018), The Breath Between (Summerworks 2019) as well as numerous acting work within the York University’s Acting Conservatory. She comes from a family much obsessed with the world of news and storytelling, which is one of the many reasons she is especially excited to dive into the plot of Black Deer in Blizzard. With all the time the pandemic has given her, she has been dusting up on her poetry skills, rewatching every Pixar film, and exploring the lovely world of face masks. Instagram: @megsventures Gwyneth McFall-Gorman is an American-Canadian actor, vocalist, and playwright. She was born in Connecticut in 1997 and is currently working as a theatre professional in the Toronto area. Gwyneth has been building her career as a stage actor and playwright since 2017, and she’s found early success in the film industry - above and below the line. She has a particular pas

Karen is a Hamilton-born Filipina- Canadian multidisciplinary artist She’s an original member of the Hamilton 7 and just finished a project with Kwentong Bayan Collective lcpcomicbook.com for myseumoftoronto.com as a storytelling facilitator and Decolonise Your Ears Festival with redbettytheatre.org directing/outreach. She is co-founder of Porch Light Theatre dedicated to the development of youth emerging and professional theatre/storytelling artists. Through Porch Light Theatre, Karen has been working with an incredible team on a site-specific audio story show called Tin Can Telephone at the Hamilton Fringe. She is currently working on The Garden Project 2021 in partnership with Industry and urging people to DONATE OR APPLY here: https://www.industrypresents.com/garden-project Currently, Karen is working with openheartartstheatre.com with Conversations Around The Table, Fertility Monologues with Light Echo Theatre. Karen is a recent recipient of a City of Hamilton Arts Award 2021. Porch Light Theatre on I

Andre is a Toronto-based Actor, Director, Producer and Writer.  He has spent most of his career working in the Theatre across the country. This is his 7th season at Stratford where he is playing Bottom in A Midsummer's Night Dream, opening the new Tom Patterson Theatre Parking Lot under a tent. He also played the title character in the 2018 Stratford hit Coriolanus directed by the World Renowned Robert Lepage, and was in the top 10 shows of 2018 in the Washington Post and The Globe & Mail and more.  In addition, he spent four seasons at The Shaw Festival where he played Tom in The Glass Menagerie and received a My Entertainment World Best Actor Award for his work in An Octoroon and a Dora Award & Toronto Theatre Critics Award for Best Actor for his work in Master Harold and the Boys.  He has also worked at Soulpepper Theatre where he toured with Kim's Convenience across the country, and also played Othello at The St. Louis Black Rep, and many other companies across the country. He is a Resident Artist

Sandi Becker is a professional stage manager who has been working all over Canada for nearly 20 years. She has worked on shows varying from school tours for kindergarteners to operas to horror/magic/puppet extravaganzas to Shakespeare. Sandi has recently started a collaboration on a podcast called "Chewing Scenery", a humorously angry look at theatre as portrayed in the movies. Listen to Chewing Scenery: https://anchor.fm/chewing-scenery Transcript at https://stageworthypodcast.com/292-sandi-becker/ Support Stageworthy: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/stageworthy

Vikki is an actor from Toronto, ON who accidentally stumbled upon her purpose. In 2012, she started a business, offering affordable studio and performance space to her fellow artists. It wasn't until a few years later that she realized that what she was doing was running a business and she was actually an entrepreneur and had been one all along. This led her to realize that all artists are actually entrepreneurs and yet all of the business resources and language that are made available to entrepreneurs are missing in arts education and culture. Vikki is now a multi-passionate artist-entrepreneur, business owner, author and coach, helping other artists turn their passion into a purpose and their creative skills into a paycheque, without losing the art. www.spacespacerevolution.com Instagram: @businessownerbymistake Artist-Bosses: https://www.facebook.com/groups/artistboss Transcript available at https://stageworthypodcast.com/291-vikki-velenosi/ Phil's Patreon: https://patreon.com/philrickaby

Brad Fraser is one of Canada's best known playwrights. Born in Edmonton, Alberta, in 1959, Brad won his first playwriting competition at the age of seventeen, and has been writing ever since. Brad's international hit play Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love premiered at the Alberta Theatre Projects' PlayRites Festival in 1989. It has since been produced worldwide, in many languages, with highly successful runs in Toronto, New York, Chicago, Milan, Sydney and London. Poor Super Man, developed by Canadian Stage, was first produced by the Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati in 1994 and has enjoyed successful runs in many cities, including Toronto, London, Sydney, Edinburgh and Denver. It was nominated for a Governor General's Literary Award for Drama and adapted into a feature film, Leaving Metropolis, written and directed by Brad. Poor Super Man, like Unidentified Human Remains, was listed by Time magazine as one of the top ten plays of its year. Many other plays have followed in successful produc

Cooking for Grief After a sudden death in his family, Rob is forced to come to terms with his own identity and the actions that inform his role as a son, partner and friend. He returns to group therapy— after a sudden hiatus— on the heels of a fractured realization of self. As the members of Group work together in their healing process, they find common ground in their experiences with loss, pain and addictions. Cooking for Grief explores familial relationships, toxic masculinity, and what it means to accept healing into one’s life Breanna Maloney (she/her) is an actor, writer and indie theatre producer based in and around Toronto. Coming from a background in movement and devised theatre, her current practice focuses on the research and exploration of shame, grief and the healing process through use of dialogue and movement. Recently, Breanna has contributed writing to Tall Tale Theatre's Night Terrors podcast, the Windsor-Essex Nature Poetry and Environmentalism zine and The Tank NYC's_ Rule of 7x7_. Brea

Shane Adamczak graduated from WAAPA in 2003 and has since gone on to become a stalwart of the West Australian Theatre and Improv scene; a Fringe Festival veteran of over 50 festivals worldwide and “One of Perth’s most successful independent theatre creators” (The Sunday Times) as a founding member and current Artistic Director of Independent Theatre Company Weeping Spoon Productions. He best known for his roles in FRANKIES, Richard O’Brien’s The Rocky Horror Show, Vicious Circles, Trampoline and This Is Not A Love Song. His most recent work is a play about a man who lives in another man’s beard called The Ballad Of Frank Allen, which won the coveted JUST FOR LAUGHS award (Best Comedy) at The Montreal Fringe. He was also the face of STAN’s national “Hungry Eyes” campaign. He is the host of the Good Morning Mrs. Strawberry podcast and recently launched his own independent toy company CUBE BOY COLLECTABLES. Twitter: @shaneadamczak Instagram: @shaneadamczak Transcript at https://stageworthypodcast.com/288-shane-a

joey o'dael is a Dora award-nominated trans nonbinary artist, performer, director, and comedian. A UWinnipeg/Randolph College alum, joey has cultivated a career focused on social equity, accessibility, and challenging oppressive paradigms. Raised in a remote Northern Manitoban community, they are deeply invested in bringing art and training opportunities to underserved communities across Turtle Island. In 2017, joey served as co-writer, dramaturg, producer, and performer for the award-winning, breakout hit ‘NASTY’ at the Toronto Fringe. They are a co-founder of both Maelstrom Art Collective; a collective dedicated to creating diverse protest pieces, and horror theatre company Aberrant Theatre. instagram: @ratkingcole.jpg tiktok: @ratkingcole twitter: @deathsparkle Transcript at https://stageworthypodcast.com/287-joey-odael/ Support Stageworthy: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/stageworthy

Caroline Toal is an award winning actor and a graduate of George Brown Theatre School. Theatrically, Caroline has performed in Seattle, Montreal, Toronto, all across southern Ontario, and has originated roles for multiple new Canadian productions. Caroline has been nominated for six awards, winning Dora Mavor Moore awards for ‘Outstanding Ensemble’ in both Casimir and Caroline produced by The Howland Company in 2020 and for the world premiere of Selfie by Christine Quintana at Young People’s Theatre in 2018. Caroline co-wrote Single Thread Theatre Company’s immersive production of Ambrose in 2015 and she is currently writing her first play, Survivors, supported by Studio 180 and Workman Arts. She is passionate about mental health awareness and the environment. www.carolinetoal.com Instagram: @toalbooth Twitter: @caretoal Transcript at https://stageworthypodcast.com/286-caroline-toal/ Support Stageworthy: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/stageworthy

Siobhan Richardson is an internationally-recognized Fight Director, an Intimacy Director (a pioneer voice in this specialty across Canada), and an award-winning actor/fighter/singer/dancer. Her teaching career has spanned Canada, USA and Europe, including international events such as the Paddy Crean International Art of the Sword Workshop, Fight Directors Canada's National Workshops, and the Nordic Stage Fight Society's Summer Workshops, and four separate teaching tours including Sweden, Norway, Estonia, England, Ireland, Scotland, Finland, Germany and France. She’s been both a student and a teacher online for over a decade. Siobhan’s work has been seen on some of Canada’s most well-recognized stages (The Canadian Opera Company, National Arts Centre, The Shaw Festival, The Stratford Festival, Factory Theatre and Soulpepper, to name a few), as well as around the world through online performance and education. In all her work, Siobhan is dedicated to the growth and development of the art form, the artists and o

Daniel Fong is an actor, singer and mostly coordinated mover bringing light and laughter from his hometown of Calgary, Alberta in Treaty 7 territory. With his mixed-race background, Daniel’s work centers around the breathing of life into new works, and reimagining treasured stories in contemporary ways. Daniel received his training at Grant MacEwan University (Class of 2012) and was the recipient of the Stephen Hair Emerging Artist Award for 2019. Using his music, heart and energy he hopes to help lead his local theatre community into the next chapter of its journey. Selected Acting Credits include: The Paper Bag Princess (StoryBook Theatre); Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, Twelfth Night, DiVerseCity (The Shakespeare Company); Gutenberg the Musical! (Lunchbox); A Christmas Carol (Theatre Calgary); Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, The Skin of Our Teeth (Rosebud); US (The Globe Theatre);The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe, Fortune Falls, The Circle (ATP); [Title of Show] (Birnton Theatrica

Jenna is a mixed-race Director and Dramaturg based on Treaty 7 Territory. She is the founding Artistic Director of Chromatic Theatre – a company dedicated to producing and developing work by and for artists of colour. Jenna is also the Dramaturg for the Playwrights Lab at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. A passionate arts equity advocate, she is a graduate of the NTS Artistic Leadership Residency, the Banff Centre’s Cultural Leadership program, and the artEquity National Facilitator Training cohort. She was shortlisted for the 2021 Gina’s Prize and is a recipient of a 2018 Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Emerging Artists. She holds an MA in International Performance Research from the universities of Amsterdam and Tampere. Recent Directing credits include Mary’s Wedding _at the Citadel Theatre, _Actually _at Alberta Theatre Projects, and Sherlock Holmes and the Raven’s Curse at Vertigo Theatre; For Chromatic Theatre (我的名是张欣恩 (Gimme Chance Leh), Winners and Losers, Cowboy Versus Samurai); fu-GEN Theatr

Caleigh Crow is a queer Métis writer, musician, and performer from Calgary. Her work tends towards themes of metaphysics, class struggle, magic, and joy. Previous topics include: a talking crow with magical powers who transforms a grocery store clerk into the agent of her own freedom, the Antifa Supersoldier, the intersection between 12th century Franciscan nuns and Britney Spears, witch revenge, and a landlord musical. Playwriting credits include HEXEN, The Order of the Poor Ladies, Kill Time Before Time Kills You, and There is Violence and There is Righteous Violence and There is Death; or The Born Again Crow, most recently performed in partnership with Gwaandak Theatre in Whitehorse. Her latest play, Hucksterland: The Musical, is in development with the support of Chromatic Theatre’s inaugural BIPOC Playwrights Unit. She wrote and performed in Betch-A-Sketch at the St Ambroise Montreal FRINGE Festival, and was the assistant director for Gender? I Hardly Know Them’s HTTPEEPEE this summer, marking her entry

Chelsea Haraburda Chelsea Haraburda (she/they) is a performer, producer, director, designer, and creator for stage and screen. Chelsea is proudly queer and passionate about featuring voices of socio-economic diversity, queerness, and their works seem to continuously feature their hometown, Hamilton ON. Over the past 6 years, Chelsea has performed as both a solo and collaborative artist at a number of festivals including Hamilton Fringe, Toronto Fringe, and FKN Make Film Festival. While studying a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre Studies, Chelsea produced their first solo show, entitled “For Eden” hosted by the Array Space and York University. Chelsea has gone on to produce and perform deeply personal and original interactive installations, such as “Full Disclosure: A Story for Eden” (2018) in association with mentorship programs such as The Junction/Theatre Aquarius and Crapshoot/Tarragon Theatre. This summer, Chelsea is returning to the Hamilton Fringe with a new play “Vagabond” in collaboration with Ryan Perciv