Amanda Lin (Toronto, ON)
Leadership in times of Crisis
This Year the National Theatre School’s Artistic Leadership Residency is exploring the theme: Leadership in times of Crisis.
One of the greatest ways for leaders to learn how to approach crisis is by leaning on community. The goal of this Residency is to build community across generations and geography.
We will create space to engage in questions and share experiences. We want to investigate what Leadership is and the context of that investigation is crisis.
The theatre ecology nationally, and internationally, are experiencing an acute moment of crisis. Cost of living, the environment, wars and global events, attrition of artists and craftspeople from the sector, audience engagement, and innumerable other pressures are inviting artistic leaders to ask foundational questions. What are the values, ethics, philosophy, and tangible actions and strategies that will respond to this moment and the moments ahead.
We will assemble a national cohort of aspiring or recent new leaders to spend one week in Montreal at NTS discussing topics with senior artists, peers and each other. We want to help build a group that will continue to connect and lean on each other for years to come.
NTS welcomes applications from aspiring leaders with seven or fewer years of experience in all forms of leadership (artistic directors, producers, managing directors, associates, and more).
The Specifics
A national cohort of aspiring or recent new leaders spends one week in Montreal at NTS discussing topics with senior artists, peers and each other. We want to help build a group that will continue to connect and lean on each other for years to come.
The cohort is made up of aspiring leaders with seven or fewer years of experience in all forms of leadership (artistic directors, producers, managing directors, associates, and more).
This year’s Residency will be held from February 3rd to the 8th in person in Montreal.
Guest Mentor Artists for the 2025 Residency include:
Quincy Armorer, Keith Barker, Micheline Chevrier, Dean Patrick Fleming, Thomas Morgan Jones, Amanda Kellock, Lisa Li, Chris O’Neill, Fanny Pagé, Ken Schwartz, Jovanni Sy and Marcus Youssef
The NTS Artistic Leadership Residencies are made possible thanks to the generous support of Power Corporation of Canada and the Birks Family Foundation.
Testimonials
Resident Artists
Adjani Poirier (Montreal, QC)
Audrey Kwan (Toronto, ON)
Dave Deveau (Vancouver, BC)
Rebecca Gibian (Montreal, QC)
Kathryn Smith (Calgary, AB)
Mallory Clarke (Trinity, N.L.)
Norah Paton (Whitehorse, YT)
Philip Geller (Winnipeg, MB)
Yulissa Campos (Saskatoon, SK)
Rinchen Dolma (Toronto, Ontario)
Cameron Fraser-Monroe (Vernon, BC)
Azal Dosanjh
” It’s great to be in a program where the end goal is to develop myself as a leader. It allows me to do things for myself like figure out how to speak publicly about art and other artists, and how to create systems, or take systems that are broken and take what is good out of it.”
Mel Hague (Artistic Leadership Residency, 2019), supported by Metcalf Foundation and Power Corporation of Canada.
“I really think that the international aspect of the residency is huge, because sometimes we can get into the silo of thinking a certain way or doing things a certain way in our own communities. Being part of perspectives outside of ours is extremely beneficial.”
Fay Nass (Artistic Leadership Residency, 2022), supported by the Birks Family Foundation and Power Corporation of Canada.
”I am compulsively curious, I live off of questions, so this environment, the tools – it’s a place for me to have those questions answered. In a safe, educational, and investing type of way. Where I’m not being graded, where there is not a metric to my success here.”
Kim Senklip Harvey (Artistic Leadership Residency, 2019), supported by Birks Foundation and Power Corporation of Canada.
“the residency allowed me to meet with leaders in a variety of global contexts, whether they were leading large institutions or companies with focused social justice mandates. these leaders took me into their confidence and brought up their own organizational strategic challenges, looking for help ‘dramaturging’ them. everyone i spoke to seemed to be making a tough decision at the intersection between their values and institutional sustainability, and hungry for an outside eye. it struck me that leadership can be isolating at times, and this residency has allowed me to build networks of values-aligned colleagues to combat that, while offering a global perspective. the greatest gift of the residency is the relationships you come out of it with.”
ted witzel (Artistic Leadership Residency, 2020), supported by Metcalf Foundation and Power Corporation of Canada.
“Delighted to have spent the past two weeks on Gadigal land, listening, learning, questioning, and being hosted by Carriageworks and Urban Theatre Projects. I am carrying with me the intention of purposeful movement, as so many communities continue to offer up generous amounts of insight and knowledge. Very grateful to NTS and the Artistic Leadership Residency for getting me here.”
Jenna Rodgers (Artistic Leadership Residency, 2020), supported by Birks Family Foundation and Power Corporation of Canada.
“Being able to fly out to work with international companies such as Punchdrunk and Chinese Arts Now in London, UK was not only an incredibly rejuvenating learning experience, but a truly validating one. To be able to converse with and work alongside some truly innovative artistic leaders (such as An-Ting Chang, Felix Barrett, and Stephen Dobbie to name a few), only to find out that many of their creative thought processes and team philosophies align with my own was a huge boost in confidence for my own leadership.”
Miquelon Rodriguez (Artistic Leadership Residency, 2022), supported by Metcalf Foundation and Power Corporation of Canada.
Applications for next year’s Residency will be announced in the Spring of 2025.
For any questions please contact Dean Fleming.
