Natasha Bean-Smith

Natasha Bean-Smith is a seasoned stage manager with over a decade of experience in Canada’s not-for-profit performing arts sector. Her career spans a wide range of theatrical productions, including work with Opera Atelier, Tarragon Theatre, Thousand Islands Playhouse, and Theatre Smash, as well as international touring experience. Natasha has held leadership roles in both artistic and operational capacities, including as Concert Manager for Tafelmusik and Tour Manager for Opera Atelier. She brings a collaborative, mentorship-driven approach to teaching, informed by her work with stage management apprentices and her involvement with the Canadian Actors’ Equity Association’s Stage Management Advisory Committee.

Natasha holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Performance Production from Toronto Metropolitan University and a Postgraduate Certificate in Human Resources Management from Conestoga College. She is a Certified Human Resources Professional (CHRP) and currently serves as Operations and HR Manager at Emerging Ag Inc., where she continues to apply her skills in leadership, scheduling, and organizational development. At Brock Natasha is our Stage Management instructor.

Sam Ferguson

Sam Ferguson is an interdisciplinary artist, sound designer, and composer based in Toronto. His practice moves fluidly between theatre, music, media art, and interactive technology. After studying with acclaimed electroacoustic composer Barry Truax in Vancouver, Sam trained at the Yale School of Drama, earning an MFA in Sound Design.

His work spans award-winning sound and composition for theatre including 1991 (The Theatre Centre), Boys, Girls and Other Mythological Creatures (FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre), and Virginia Wolf (Centaur Theatre). More recently, he has developed interdisciplinary projects such as 2021 (with Guilty by Association Theatre), which toured festivals in Canada, the U.S., and Europe. These projects explore the intersections of video games, AI, and live performance. At Brock Sam teaches Theatrical Projection and Media. Across his practice, he is driven by a commitment to risk-taking, cross-genre experimentation, and the creation of new media languages for performance

Alexa Fraser

Alexa Fraser is a multi-disciplinary artist based from St. Catharines, Ontario. Guided by sustainability, feminist perspectives, and community engagement, her practice spans costume and puppet design, textile and installation art, and arts education. She holds a B.Des in Fashion Design from Toronto Metropolitan University (2006) and has worked as a Technical Designer for Abercrombie & Fitch Co., in the Tailoring Department at the Shaw Festival, and as Head of Wardrobe for Carousel Players (2015–2024).

Her artwork has been exhibited at the Niagara Artists Centre, In the Soil Arts Festival, Niagara Falls Night of Art, Culture Days St.Catharines, Woodstock Art Gallery, and the Center for Puppetry Arts (Atlanta, GA). She has designed costumes and puppets for Carousel Players, Bravo Academy for the Performing Arts, Brock University Main Stages, The Foster Festival, Guilty by Association, Presentation House Theatre, Stolen Theatre Collective, and Yellow Door Theatre Project. Since 2023, she has taught Production and Design courses in Wardrobe, Costuming, Props, and Puppets in the Department of Dramatic Arts at Brock University.

Fun fact: Alexa ran a homemade ice cream business, Hometown Ice Cream, from 2010–2014. The company still exists under new ownership and ice cream remains her favourite treat.
Website: www.alexafraser.ca

Kevin Hobbs

Kevin Hobbs is an actor, director, writer, researcher and educator. He employs narrative theory, performance and other artistic methodologies in his research and educational work. He is president of Mirror Theatre, a research/education theatre company (www.mirrortheatre.ca) which offers Brock students the opportunity to discover the joys of applied theatre and skills in dramatic devising. He is also the Creative Director at Essential Collective Theatre (www.ectheatre.com), a Niagara-based company.

He is co-author of the book Playbuilding as Arts-Based Research: Health, Wellness, Social Justice and Higher Education. His PhD work in Curriculum Studies explores how performance pedagogies enhance healthcare education. He has a Masters in Social Justice and Equity, and this research used a Playbuilding methodology to explore how person-centred care is achieved in medicine. The subsequent thesis received the ARTS Graduate Research Award from the Canadian Society for the Study of Education. He is co-recipient of the 2010 Alan Blizzard Award for “exemplary collaborative projects that improve student learning.”

Kevin is a poet, a Shakespearean actor and improvisor in developing new theatre works. Biggest interest? Exploring the ways art (particularly theatre) opens avenues of expression for students and community members. The discoveries from this work never cease to amaze!

Shannon Hughes

Shannon E. Hughes is a theatre practitioner, performer, scholar and art educator, currently pursuing her PhD in Theatre and Performance Studies at York University. With a Master of Arts in Applied Drama and Theatre Studies from the University of Cape Town, her work has largely centered around using drama for social inclusion, particularly within refugee and migration contexts. She also holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Honours Acting from the University of Windsor. Shannon has a deep commitment to Theatre in Education, having taught internationally in Uganda, Zambia, South Korea, and Guatemala. She has inspired young people through creative workshops designed to empower and unite communities, using theatre as a tool for personal and social growth. 

David Jansen

David Jansen is an actor, director, and educator. As an actor over the last thirty years, he has performed leading and supporting roles in theatres throughout Canada and the U.K., including Canadian Stage, Tarragon, Mirvish Productions, Soulpepper, the Stratford and Shaw Festivals, the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, the Citadel, Prairie Theatre Exchange, and a season with The Peter Hall Company (UK). As a director he recently directed Anne Carson’s translation of Euripides’ Bakkhai for Theatre@York, as well as Tabia Lau’s The Antigone Play and Aaron Jan’s HAGS, two plays commissioned for online performance by York University. He also adapted and directed The Oresteia at Randolph College for the Performing Arts, and staged The Witch of Edmonton, The Duchess of Malfi, and The Tamer Tamed at George Brown Theatre School. Other directing credits include Tuesdays with Morrie at Thousand Islands Playhouse, The Plough and the Stars and Attempts on her Life (with Jennifer Tarver) at TMU, Betrayal for BeMe Theatre in Munich, and Kaspar and the Sea of Houses (with Birgit Schreyer-Duarte) for Summerworks, winning that Festival’s award for Outstanding Production in 2011. For the Tarragon’s 2015-2016 season, he was also Interim Literary Coordinator and Interim Assistant Artistic Director. He has designed and taught courses in acting at all the schools mentioned above. David is also proud of his work with The Wrecking Ball, a Toronto political cabaret series. He was recently an assistant professor at York University where he taught acting, devised theatre, and graduate courses in performance studies. He’s the proud dad of two amazing daughters, Nora and Molly, and lives in Toronto with his wonderful partner, Alix.

Joe Lapinski

Joe Lapinski is musician, songwriter, producer, sound designer and educator based in St. Catharines Ontario Canada. Joe also has a love for theatre, and has worked as a sound designer for companies such as The Shaw Festival, Obsidian Theatre, Carousel Players, Presentation House Theatre, as well as Brock University Mainstage productions. Joe is also the former music director for Suitcase In Point Multi-Arts Company (2001-2010). As an educator, he has been a part-time instructor at Brock University at MIWSFPA since Sept 2021, teaching sound design for theatre, and has previously taught Audio for Film and TV as well as Interactive Multimedia at Niagara College (2010-2020).  He also teaches songwriting workshops through The Willow Arts Community. Joe has a passion for arts in the community, and is a co-founder of the In the Soil Arts Festival as well as the SOUND SOUND Improvised Music Series, all based in St. Catharines. Recent theatre productions include: Stupid Fucking Bird (Brock University Main Stage, 2024), Tiny Treasures (Carousel Players, 2023), A Vampire Story (Brock University, 2023), Pop! Pop! (Carousel Players, 2021/2022).

Kari Pederson

Kari Pederson (she/they) is an award-winning performance creator, academic, and educator based in Tkaronto, Canada. She has over 20 years’ experience on stage working in devised physical theatre, contemporary dance, and design-led creation, and has recently begun working as a movement director for film. Kari’s current choreographic research, asking how we might understand togetherness and affectual ecologies through a logic of play, pleasure, and reciprocity, will be published in 2025 in About Performance, a peer-reviewed journal with University of Sydney, Australia. They hold an M.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies from York University with a focus on de-mystifying common, yet esoteric, performance techniques such as; listening, tuning in, being present, and non-verbal communication. 

Michael Reinhart

Dr. Michael Reinhart is a theatre/performance creator, performance scholar and theatre instructor. Their work (both creative and academic) is based in exploring interdisciplinary art-making, and collective-driven devised performance creation. Much of this research has occurred through collaboration with [elephants] collective and boundary conditions / performance assembly, both of which they are a founding member. Michael maintains a busy creative practice as a creator, director, performer, and dramaturg, select works include - A Wake for Lost Time (various venues across Canada 2014-2020), 4.5 (ig)noble truths (various venues across Canada 2016-2020), Operations (1945-2005) : Movements (Nuit Blanche 2018), ARTSTAR (Nuit Blanche 2019), A Kitchen Sink Drama (Rhubarb 2017), Surplus Party Guest (Katzmann Contemporary 2017). Currently, Michael is completing a book on devising practices for Vernon Press. 

Alix Sideris

Alix Sideris is an actor, movement director, intimacy coordinator/choreographer, writer, director, facilitator in many arts education institutions, and a meditation leader. She embraces mind/body exploration in all her work and is engaged in perpetual investigation that seeks to build a pedagogy and practice towards the creation of a more visceral and sensitive psychodynamic connection, leading to bolder, deeper creativity. All in all, Alix offers brave environments where one can investigate risk, expansion, wholeness, and creativity. As an artist, Alix has performed in many productions and also assisted in developing new works at The National Arts Centre, Mirvish, Opera Lyra, Theatre Calgary, Crows Theatre, The Great Canadian Theatre Company, The St. Lawrence Shakespeare Festival, and The Stratford Festival, to name only a few. Alix was a resident actor in the National Arts Centre’s English Theatre Ensembles. Recently Alix was seen in Better Days (Apple/Prime), Matchmaker Mysteries (Hallmark): Assassins Creed: The Odyssey, Valhalla, Dawn of Ragnarök (Ubi Soft). Recent Intimacy Direction credits include Rent, Wedding Band, Much Ado About Nothing, Hamlet (Stratford Festival). More on Alix online: alixsideris.com. 

Sarah Weatherwax

Sarah Weatherwax is an Actor, Designated Linklater Voice Teacher, VO & Communication Skills Coach based in Toronto. She holds an Honours BFA in Acting from Emerson College. After beginning her career, she went on to receive a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts to train with Kristin Linklater. Sarah has been teaching voice since, working in numerous studios and schools, including Shakespeare & Company in Massachusetts, Straeon Acting Studios, Brock University, Humber College and Meisner Academie in The Netherlands.

Sarah’s voice can be heard in shows such as Coroner and Heartland, movies/MOWs such as Beeba Boys, Hobo With a Shotgun, Random Acts of Violence and Book of Negroes. She was the voice of Olive in Buried Past: A Family History Mystery. And on-stage, her production of MUD by Maria Irene Fornes garnered four out of five ‘Ns’ in NOW Toronto, the city’s premier arts & entertainment paper.

Sarah has written numerous stories, one of which was long-listed in an international competition and one short-listed. She continues to work on her novel about a woman who physically experiences time as non-linear.

She has taught voice & communication skills at a highly successful not-for-profit in the US, a teaching hospital in Toronto, and an organization representing Asian Canadian women in the legal profession. She has an on-going private practice and runs group classes online. She was a founding board member of the National Voice Association.
linktr.ee/sarahweatherwax

Alison Wong

Alison Wong 黃巧文 (she/they) is a director, producer, and performance maker born in Hong Kong and now based in Treaty 13 territory, also known as Toronto/Tkaronto. A graduate of York University and Canadian Stage’s MFA in Stage Direction, her work in opera and theatre – with a focus on transnational and plurilingual storytelling – has taken her from across Turtle Island to the Netherlands, Italy, and India. Recent directing credits include Bombay Black (Alberta Theatre Projects), The Living Tree (Sheridan/Musical Stage Co), Blackberry (Red Beti Theatre), nowhen (CanadianStage/SummerWorks), Cloudless (Periphery/11ours/Canadian Stage), Revolt. She said. Revolt again. (York University), Stormy Weather (IN Series, Washington DC), and La fedeltà premiata (Royal Opera House, Mumbai). She was Co-Curator of SummerWorks Performance Festival 2023 and Canadian Stage’s 2022 Festival of Ideas and Creation. As an independent Creative Producer, she thrives on building world premiere productions of new performance works. Alison recently produced the world premieres of dance theatre work Cacao | A Venezuelan Lament by Victoria Mata and The First Stone by Donna-Michelle St. Bernard. She has also produced with Small Wooden Shoe, Theatre Direct and WeeFestival, SummerWorks Performance Festival, and Luminato Festival Toronto. In 2017, she concluded a five-season term as Artistic Producer with b current, a Toronto-based company of 30+ years dedicated to developing new Canadian performance works by BIPOC artists. Alison is the creative mentor for DART 4D56, Collaborative Play Development.

Leah Cherniak

Leah Cherniak is a nationally acclaimed director, writer and educator with 30+ years experience forging successful theatrical innovation in Canada. Leah’s directing and devising approach combines dramaturgy, poetic text and attention to the physical theatrical worlds within any story.  She has directed in theatres throughout Canada, including The National Arts Centre, Soulpepper, Tarragon, Factory and many more. Leah teaches Clown and Directing at U of T. More recently, she directed Perceptual Archaeology or How to Travel Blind by Alex Bulmer. The Anger in Ernest and Ernestine opens the 2024/25 season at GCTC in Ottawa, a play she co-created and was its original director. Leah taught Clown at Metropolitan University Theatre School for over 20 years.  She was an Associate Artist with Soulpepper Theatre for 10 years, and Associate Director of its Academy. She worked annually for The Shoe Project, a boundary crossing writing project, coaching women in presenting their stories of immigrating to Toronto.  

Emma Dirks

Emma Dirks is from the Niagara area but left after high school to find adventure in a bigger place. She attended University of Texas on a rowing scholarship where she received a BA in Theatre and focused on Wigs and Makeup. After graduating she moved to Los Angeles to do the Hollywood thing in film and television working on indie/pilots/fashion etc. In 2017 the Shaw Festival called and offered her a position in the Wig and Makeup Department, since her visa had expired she decided it was best  to come home and make her mom happy. She still works at the Shaw as a Supervisor at the Studio Theatre and Festival Theatre. She loves working with young artists passing along her knowledge and experience. As well as showing them you CAN get your dream job in theatre.

Shannon Lea Doyle

Shannon Lea Doyle is an award winning set and costume designer based in Toronto. She is a founder of Triga Creative: a design collective creating extraordinary live experiences while raising the profile of ecoscenography. Her design career moves between collaborations with independent artists on new work and reimagining classic texts and musicals on some of the most reputable stages in Canada. She holds a BFA in Sculpture and Installation from OCAD University and studied scenography in the Soulpepper Academy under the mentorship of Lorenzo Savoini. 

Josephine Ho

Josephine Ho brings to DART’s Stage Management class the experience of over 19 years as an Equity Stage Manager.  She loves being able to work with so many different people on such a variety of shows and is happy to share her knowledge with her students. Some favourites include: SM for Beautiful Scars, Ring of Fire, Jack of Diamonds (Theatre Aquarius), Dear John Deere (Blyth & Lighthouse Festival Theatres), Mary’s Wedding, Rum Runners, (Lighthouse), Leading Ladies (Sudbury Theatre Centre), Future Folks (Sulong Theatre Collective/Theatre Passe Muraille); ASM for Cabaret, Full Monty, Pitmen Painters, Seussical (Theatre Aquarius) and Race Day (Lighthouse).

Owen Kane

Dr. Owen Kane is a SSHRC postdoctoral researcher and critical theorist in the departments of Dramatic Arts and English Literature. He writes and teaches at the intersection of theatre history and performance, eco-cultural studies, disability studies, and political activism around the Circumpolar North from the early modern period to today. Among his most recent publications is a chapter on John Milton, disability studies, embodiment, and care studies forthcoming from University of Edinburgh Press, and essays in Spenser Studies, Shakespeare and the Sea, and TOPIA. Previously, he was a founding committee member of the Chapel Royal of the Mississauga of the Credit First Nation at Massey College and has experience working in partnerships to develop accessible infrastructure for universities. He has developed and performed eco-conscious children’s theatre and done backstage work for Public Energy Performing Arts. He is currently a participant in a working group on modernizing the teaching of Shakespeare through performance in the classroom.