TEC – Comedy Creation for Our Community
— ABOUT THE PROJECT
Sketch Comedy in the Community is a free class in sketch comedy creation offered by actor, director and sketch comedian Allison Moira Kelly. The class will offer participants an understanding of how to dissect jokes, focus on the responsibility of the comedian, explore what we mean by “sketch comedy,” write sketch in various forms, and act in sketch comedy. At the class’s culmination, participants will write and act in a small showcase of sketch comedy!
— BIOGRAPHY
Allison Kelly (Directing, 2024) is a director and actor from Gander, Newfoundland and Labrador. Before attending the National Theatre School to study directing, she worked professionally as an actor and theatre maker for 15 years. She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts (acting), and a Masters of Fine Arts (acting). Allison was a sessional teacher in the Fine Arts department at Memorial University of Newfoundland for 7 years before attending NTS. During her two years at NTS, Allison directed Sam Steiner’s play Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons, and Michael Cook’s play Quiller. She also directed Gillian Clark’s play Trojan Kids for her final project. Allison completed a TEC project on sketch comedy during her time at NTS. She worked with coaches such as Micheline Chevrier, Ann-Marie Kerr, Rose Plotek, Clea Minaker, and more. In the future Allison would like to continue to teach acting, direct plays, and move into film making.
Instagram: @allisonmoira
TEC – Flux in the city
— ABOUT THE PROJECT
FLUX IN THE CITY will take the form of a municipal consultation meeting in an alternate universe where the CN Tower has disappeared. Two city planners will lead audiences through a theatrical version of a community consultation, to decide what to do with the empty space the Tower has left behind. Municipal consultations in Toronto are notorious for being boring, poorly executed, and exclusionary. By contrast, FLUX IN THE CITY will use puppetry, multimedia, and participatory theatre models to transform the doldrums of a municipal consultation into an irreverent, challenging, joyful event. We will give audiences the agency to decide what should replace the CN Tower: as audience members generate ideas, a visual artist will be on hand to draw their ideas in real time.
— BIOGRAPHY
Nathaniel Hanula-James (Acting, 2019) Originally from the drizzly land of Vancouver, British Columbia, Nathaniel completed a Bachelor of Arts in drama at McGill University before starting his journey at the National Theatre School of Canada. Over the course of his training he tackled a wide range of material, from mask work to heightened classical text, from Caryl Churchill to Morris Panych. He also worked with acclaimed artists and teachers such as Philip Akin (Director, 7 Stories), Brenda Bazinet (naturalism), David Latham (mask and Shakespeare), Ian Watson (Shakespeare), Marla McLean and Graeme Somerville (Shavian period), Jackie Maxwell (Chekhov), and Theatre Replacement’s Maiko Yamamoto (collective creation). Nathaniel intends to put down roots in Toronto and Vancouver after graduation. He hopes to collaborate on work which approaches even the most difficult subject matter with unabashed theatricality, irreverence, and joy. He is always scavenging for ways to further his creative practice, and is currently at work on a solo piece about his campy, melodramatic, queer cultural inheritance.
Wesley Reibeling
Wesley is a multidisciplinary artist and a community advocate, Co-Chair of Jane’s Walk, a Senior Project Manager at Park People, a board member for UrbanMinds, and Senior Editor of a queer art zine, Relish and Muster.
TEC – Invisible artist conceived: Development workshop
— ABOUT THE PROJECT
Invisible Artists Carnival (IAC) is a free, outdoor, multidisciplinary performance created and performed by an ensemble of outsider circus folk from the mad, disability and queer communities: Yousef Kadoura, Erin Ball and Harri Thomas. Over the course of the show, the performers make various attempts to summon the mysterious Invisible Artist. These attempts vary in form, from clown turns and aerial silks to audience participatory ritual. They ultimately succeed, and the performance culminates in a theatrical carnival of light, music and creative joy. The Invisible Artist is performed by Silvae Mercedes and a rotating ensemble of disability artists recruited from local communities. This ensemble changes with every new iteration of the performance, and in turn changes fundamental aspects of the work, reflecting community members’ own artistic interests and practices.
— BIOGRAPHY
Harri Thomas (Directing, 2019) Harri Thomas is a director, dramaturg and performance-maker based between rural and urban Ontario. They are the founding artistic director of Toronto’s Desiderata Theatre Co. Their previous works as a director have included adaptations of classic texts as well as world play premieres and live art creations. Their work emphasizes the body as the site of both trauma and forgiveness in relationship to love, the earth, the spirit and society. They are a recent graduate of the National Theatre School of Canada’s directing program. Recent credits include director and dramaturg, One Night (Other HeArts, Caminos 2019); creator and performer, Flower Machine v2: Paiseu (Other HeArts, York Lane Art Collective); and director and dramaturg, MAD ONES (Tangled Art + Disability).
