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Makambe K Simamba originally from Zambia, is a multiple award-winning playwright and actor. Select stage acting credits include work with New Harlem Productions, Thousand Islands Playhouse, Ghost River Theatre, Chromatic Theatre, and Sage Theatre. On-screen, she can be seen in projects like Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Titans, True Dating Stories, Grand Army and more. As a playwright, her solo work includes the multiple Dora Award-Winning Our Fathers, Sons, Lovers and Little Brothers, A Chitenge Story and Makambe Speaks. Makambe intends to be of service through her ability to tell stories.Join us on this episode as Makambe takes us on the journey of her immigration to Canada, her creative exploits within the nuances of the Black aesthetic and umbrella in North America, and how she inhabits her successes and rides the big ups and big downs on her path. Listen, like, share and comment! Follow Makambe on Instagram at @artingwithmakambe Check out her website - https://www.makambe.com/ If you are an African/Black immigrant and would like to be a featured guest on Afros in the Diaspora Podcast, send a DM or email with the information below! Facebook | Instagram - @afrosinthediaspora For Inquiries - hi@afrosinthediaspora.com
As we revealed in our 42nd Street episode the shoes of our wonderful Canadian Bea Arthur Autumn Smith left were just too big to fill for one co-host. So the decision was made to split the co-hosting duties between two wonderful hosts and you've met Maris Lyons and now we are excited to introduce you to our new and other permanent co-host Scott Hurst! Scott is a survivor of 48 years in professional & community theatre, Scott has earned a living as an actor, singer, dancer, director, writer & producer, and his resume includes seasons at the Stratford Festival, Charlottetown Festival, Blyth Festival, Thousand Islands Playhouse, the National Arts Centre and a side trip to the MDM Theatre in Moscow. A recipient of an Excellence in the Arts award at the 2009 Barrie Arts Awards, Scott is known locally for his extensive work with The South Simcoe Theatre, Kempenfelt Community Players, Talk is Free Theatre, Theatre by the Bay, Huronia Players, and the Orillia Sunshine Festival. He currently sits on the Board of Directors for The South Simcoe Theatre and is helping to develop a training program for actors, directors, singers and production teams. A proud member of the LGBTQ2S+ community, Scott is now considered by some to be a Gay Elder and he's grateful to have lived long enough to achieve that status. 3TY Rob! We are so excited to have Scott on our team and please joy this introductory interview where Mackenzie and Scott discuss Scott's theatrical background and we explore his thoughts on the current musical theatre landscape. Don't forget to leave us a review and share your thoughts on this episode on our social media pages. Follow the links below to reach our pages. Facebook Instagram Twitter
Rob Kempson is a theatre artist and educator, working primarily as a director and playwright, and the Artistic Director of the Capitol Theatre in Port Hope. Selected Writer/Director: Trigonometry (timeshare/Factory); Mockingbird (Next Stage Theatre Festival); SHANNON 10:40 (timeshare/Videofag); explicit (Rhubarb Festival); #legacy (Harbourfront Centre); The HV Project (Community). Selected Director: Box 4901 (timeshare/Buddies), The Places We Are (Theatre Erindale), The Snow Queen (Canadian Children's Opera Company), Electric Messiah (Soundstreams), The Little Mermaid (St. Lawrence College), 9 to 5: The Musical (Randolph College), The Ballad of Stompin' Tom (Sudbury Theatre Centre), Box 4901 (SummerWorks, foldA Festival); The Canadian, Maggie and Pierre, Million Dollar Quartet, Daisy Amazed Me, Violet's the Pilot, Rose's Clothes (Thousand Islands Playhouse); Robert (co-directed with Briana Brown, Toronto Fringe); Songs for a New World (Claude Watson). Writer/Composer/Performer: The Way Back To Thursday (Theatre Passe Muraille/Touchstone Theatre – Dora Nomination: Outstanding New Musical). Rob has been a member of the Stratford Festival Playwrights' Retreat, a Resident Artist Educator at Young People's Theatre, and the RBC Intern Director for The Musical Stage Co. He is the past Artistic Producer of the Paprika Festival, the past Associate Artistic Producer at Theatre Passe Muraille, and the past Associate Artistic Director at the Thousand Islands Playhouse. Rob is also the Co-Artistic Director of ARC, a Toronto-based company. www.robkempson.com Twitter: @rob_kempson Instagram: @rob_kempson Tickets to ARC's Martyr: https://www.nativeearth.ca/shows/martyr/ Support Stageworthy Donate: tips.pinecast.com/jar/stageworthy
The Stuph File Program Featuring investigative journalist, Julian Sher; Mark Everglade, author of Inertia; & science writer Andrew Fazekas, author of National Geographic Backyard Guide to the Night Sky Download Investigative journalist, Julian Sher, has produced the documentary, Kings Of Coke, about Montreal's West End Gang, who ran the drug trade in the city for decades. Mark Everglade is the author of Inertia, a science fiction novel that explores an ecological crisis of epic proportions. The story takes place on the last remaining colony of the human race, located 20 light years from Earth. Science writer, Andrew Fazekas, The Night Sky Guy, author of National Geographic Backyard Guide to the Night Sky, talks about his latest book, the massive tome entitled National Geographic's Stargazer Atlas: The Ultimate Guide To The Night Sky. Now you can listen to selected items from The Stuph File Program on the new audio service, Audea. A great way to keep up with many of the interviews from the show and take a trip down memory lane to when this show began back in 2009, with over 700 selections to choose from! This week's guest slate is presented by Carrie Milks who works at the Box Office of The Thousand Islands Playhouse, Canada's Dockside Theatre, located in Gananoque, Ontario.
The Simcoe Muskoka Opioid Strategy Committee released a new report on its three-year action plan for addressing opioid-related harms in the region. The Royal Canadian Sea Cadets have finally returned to Kingston this summer for in-person training, but enrollment is significantly smaller than years past. A child starts a list to deal with the adversity in her life -- that's the premise of a play by Thousand Islands Playhouse in Gananoque.
Our Guest today is Marcia Johnson. Marcia is an actor, playwright, dramaturge and librettist. She was born in Jamaica and has lived in Toronto since the age of six. She became a WGC member when her 90-minute Fringe, play Perfect on Paper was commissioned for Sunday Showcase on CBC Radio in 2003. She played the lead in both the stage and radio versions. Perfect on Paper was a silver medalist in the New York Festivals. Other radio dramas include Wifely Duty, The Revival Meeting and Say Ginger Ale (a WGC Screenwriting award finalist.) Other accomplishments include the world premiere of Serving Elizabeth, in which she also acted, at Western Canada Theatre in February 2020. It was a co-production with Thousand Islands Playhouse whose production was postponed to October 2021. It had a production under a canopy at Stratford Festival and at Belfry Theatre. The play is published by Scirocco Drama. Marcia has participated in playwrights' units at Thousand Islands Playhouse, Obsidian Theatre Company, Theatre Passe Muraille as well as Ontario Arts Council Playwright's Residencies at Blyth Festival and Roseneath Theatre. The short opera My Mother's Ring for which she wrote the libretto with composer Stephen A. Taylor was nominated for a 2009 Dora Mavor Moore Award in Toronto. Their second collaboration, Paradises Lost, based on the Ursula K. Le Guin novella had excerpted concert performances at Reed College (Third Angle Ensemble) in Portland, Oregon and at The Gershwin Hotel in New York. Paradises Lost had its premiere at University of Illinois and a concert performance for Musical Works in Concert during the SummerWorks Festival. Marcia Johnson works with several organizations to support members of the theatre community including: Got Your Back Canada where she is a core member. She sits on the Women Playwrights International senior advisory board; is a CASA founding member, a mentorship program pairing mid-career female South African playwrights; and Ergo Arts Pink Fest (selection committee, dramaturg, actor), a festival featuring the works of female, trans and non-binary playwrights. She is also a member of ARCA (Artists for Real Climate Action) finding creative ways help combat the climate crisis. Our discussion focused on her process and voice as a playwright and the importance of being empathetic to all her characters and how they bring value to her personal development.
Justine Lewis aka ‘Tene' is a bilingual Canadian triple threat. She is best known for her performances aboard the Disney Dream with Disney Cruise Line where she portrayed Cruella Deville in The Golden Mickeys, Ensemble in Disney's Believe & Plumette “Babette” in DCL's newest award-winning show Beauty and The Beast. Tene is currently rehearsing for the Disney Wonder in Toronto where she will head out to sea for the next 8 months!Other select credits include Leanne/Dance Captain in Back In 59 (Thousand Islands Playhouse, Magnus Theatre), Norma in The Value of Names (Toronto Centre for the Arts), President Aria/Choreographer in the original award-winning Captain Aurora; A Superhero Musical (St-Ambroise Montreal Fringe Festival/Trevor Barette), The Tin Can People (Edinburgh Fringe Festival/Joan McBride), Paulette in Legally Blonde (Randolph Theatre/Lezlie Wade) & Judge Littlefield in The Last Days of Judas Iscariot (Annex Theatre/Rosanna Saracino).Justine is a graduate of the Musical Theatre program at Randolph College (Toronto, ON) as well the Professional Theatre program at John Abbott College in her hometown of Montreal, QC. Justine can also be seen training in film & television, improvising with her bold comedic skills at Second City as well as featured in various TV commercials. Justine launched “Are You Okay!?” the podcast in 2021 and it has been a huge success with merchandise and many accredited guests!Search “Mitchell Report Unleashed Podcast” on Apple Podcast, Spotify (Any podcast streaming service), and subscribe to check out our episodes. The purpose of the short clip is to give people a glimpse of the upcoming episode so they can decide if they want to watch more or not. If you don't watch the full episodes on Youtube you will miss out on a lot of the context of the clips. The clips should not be taken as independent content but should lead the viewers to watch or listen to the full episode to understand the entirety of the conversation.✅ Subscribe To The Mitchell Report Unleashed Podcast
Welcome to the "THEATRE IS BACK" 3 part series where Tene takes you along with her as she performs in her very first live show back post pandemic! Last week we met the cast and this week we meet Brett Christopher; the Managing Artistic Director of the Thousand Islands Playhouse in Gananoque. It's time to find out who the man is behind some of the first live theatre to return to the Canadian stage! From going to theatre school at 26 to becoming an artistic director to keeping theatre alive during a pandemic; we cover it all! Brett is a problem solver so he was definitely thrown when it came to covid and he unpacks exactly how he handled it. The stand out aspect of this interview is how he turned the theatre's focus from making plays to espousing values and making an impact in the community. Brett also puts Tene on the spot a couple of times to discuss imposter syndrome and some of the bullsh*t insecurity that comes along with being an actor in this industry. Listen to level up & check out the livestream options for this sold out show: http://www.1000islandsplayhouse.com FIND TENE: linktr.ee/tenelewis ORDER YOUR MERCH TODAY: www.moreteesplease.shop www.smoothmyballs.com | use code "ruok" at checkout for 15% off www.4ocean.com | use code "ruok" at checkout for 10% off
Just when you thought Season 2 was complete; Tene is back with 3 bonus episodes to celebrate the return of theatre in Canada! Tene is doing a show at The Thousand Islands Playhouse called "Back in '59" and she is bringing the podsters along for the ride! After the first day of rehearsals, Tene fell to her knees and screamed "I HAVE PURPOSE" to everyone in the rehearsal hall! Listen to find out what it's been like to breathe life into this non stop 90 minute musical review written by Thom Currie, musical direction by Steve Thomas and directed & choreographed by Stephanie Graham. Meet the cast as they each unpack who they are as artists, what they were to up pre pandemic & during the pandemic, the one thing they missed most about doing theatre and a few personal questions for Tene! We have all evolved this past year and a half and so has the theatre; get ready to enjoy some serious self reflection and of course a few giggles. You don't need to be in person to enjoy this show; you can livestream "Back in '59" from the comfort of your home. All of the details at http://www.1000islandsplayhouse.com !!! FIND THE GUESTS: Andrew Hodwitz @andrewhodwitz | Julia McLellan @juliaemilymclellan @canadiangreenalliance @zerowastewarbler | Jeremy Carver James @jcarverjames FIND TENE: linktr.ee/tenelewis ORDER YOUR MERCH TODAY: www.moreteesplease.shop www.smoothmyballs.com | use code "ruok" at checkout for 15% off www.4ocean.com | use code "ruok" at checkout for 10% off
The Thousand Islands Playhouse hosts Music on the Block this month with free outdoor concerts across Gananoque each weekend. Managing Artistic Director Brett Christopher and podcast host and Company Manager Marta McDonald discuss the series of events, what to expect, and the important impetus behind Music on the Block.
Welcome to The Curtain Warmer - the podcast that warms you up for the show you're about to see at the Thousand Islands Playhouse. On this episode, hosts Sophia Fabiilli and Marta McDonald chat with actors Parmida Vand and Richard Lam about the play "The New Canadian Curling Club". Sponsored by 99.9 myFM Gananoque.
Welcome to The Curtain Warmer - the podcast that warms you up for the show you're about to see at the Thousand Islands Playhouse. On this episode, host Sophia Fabiilli chats with playwright/actor Ellie Moon and director Carly Chamberlain about Asking For It. Sponsored by 99.9 myFM Gananoque.
Welcome to The Curtain Warmer - the podcast that warms you up for the show you're about to see at the Thousand Islands Playhouse. On this episode, hosts Sophia Fabiilli and Marta McDonald chat with actors Donna Garner and Scott Carmichael about "Ring of Fire". Sponsored by 99.9 myFM Gananoque.
Welcome to The Curtain Warmer - the podcast that warms you up for the show you're about to see at the Thousand Islands Playhouse. On this episode, hosts Sophia Fabiilli and Marta McDonald chat with actors David Storch and Liisa Repo-Martell about "The Boy in the Moon". Sponsored by 99.9 myFM Gananoque.
Welcome to The Curtain Warmer - the podcast that warms you up for the show you're about to see at the Thousand Islands Playhouse. On this episode, hosts Sophia Fabiilli and Marta McDonald chat with actors Kate Dion-Richard and Advah Soudack about GLORY. Sponsored by 99.9 myFM Gananoque.
Welcome to The Curtain Warmer - the podcast that warms you up for the show you're about to see at the Thousand Islands Playhouse. On this episode, hosts Sophia Fabiilli and Marta McDonald chat with actor/playwright Farren Timoteo about his show Made in Italy. Sponsored by 99.9 myFM Gananoque.
Welcome to The Curtain Warmer - the podcast that warms you up for the show you're about to see at the Thousand Islands Playhouse. On this episode, hosts Sophia Fabiilli and Marta McDonald chat with actors Marcia Tratt and Larry Mannell about Anne of Green Gables: The Musical. Sponsored by 99.9 myFM Gananoque.
For the first 20 years of his life, Brett Christopher wanted nothing to do with acting. Fast forward to today, he is the Managing Artistic Director of the Thousand Islands Playhouse in Gananoque, Ontario. In the third episode of Becoming, Brett speaks to host Catherine Tang about the power of creation, how he learned the business side of running an arts organization, and all the twists and turns that led him to where he is now.You can find Brett on Twitter at @kingstonbrett, and you can learn more about the Thousand Islands Playhouse at www.1000islandsplayhouse.com Theme music: “Inspiring and Upbeat” by Scott Holmes www.scottholmesmusic.com
A Toronto native and graduate of George Brown Theatre School, Lisa Norton has had the pleasure of splitting her time between the worlds of stage, screen and voice acting.Her twenty-year theatre career has taken her across Canada to major venues including The Arts Club (Vancouver), Citadel Theatre (Edmonton), Theatre Calgary, Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, The Globe (Regina), The Segal Centre (Montreal), Odyssey Theatre (Ottawa), Theatre Aquarius (Hamilton), and Thousand Islands Playhouse, as well as throughout the U.S. on tour with Roseneath Theatre. At home in Toronto, some of Lisa's favourite stage appearances include The Model Apartment (Harold Green Jewish Theatre), Of Mice and Men (Canadian Stage), And Up They Flew (Theatre Columbus), Den of Thieves (Surface Underground), Better Living and Escape From Happiness (Factory Theatre), An Acre of Time (Tarragon), and The Innocent Eye Test (Mirvish Productions). Lisa premiered new work at the Blyth Festival for three summers, played the role of Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream for the inaugural season of Newmarket's Resurgence Theatre, and was a member of the esteemed Shaw Festival acting company for five years, performing in eleven shows including Picnic, Widowers' Houses, Hay Fever, andlate great director Neil Munro's full six-hour Man and Superman. While at the Shaw, she was chosen by then-Artistic Director Christopher Newton as the recipient of a Toronto Arts Protégé Honour. Busy treading the boards, Lisa got around rather late to trying her hand at fim and TV, but has since found success in that realm as well. Her most recent appearances are in the film A Deadly View and the new TV series Carter (Sony Pictures/Bravo). Other work includes a recurring role as famous anarchist Emma Goldman in Murdoch Mysteries (Shaftesbury Films); appearances on Reign (CBS/Warner Bros./The CW), Fringe (Warner Bros./Fox), Rookie Blue (Global/ABC); Magic Beyond Words: The JK Rowling Story (Lifetime Network); Degrassi (CTV); Living In Your Car (Movie Central), and the role of war widow Edith McCallum on Global Television's hit WWII series Bomb Girls. More recently, Lisa discovered a whole new crazy and rewarding job upon breaking into the world of voice acting. As well as using her dulcet tones to sell you everything from cars to tuna to cell phones in dozens of TV and radio ads, Lisa has voiced characters in numerous cartoons including Atomic Puppet (Disney XD), Rocket Monkeys (Teletoon), Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs: The Series (Sony/Teletoon), Creative Galaxy (Amazon); Doozers (The Jim Henson Company), The Mysteries of Alfred Hedgehog (Muse/TVO), Willa's Wild Life (Nelvana/YTV), and Detentionnaire (Teletoon). Lisa also provides the voice and motion capture perfornance of Lydia Frye in the Ubisoft game Asssassin’s Creed: Syndicate. She is currently recording one of the lead roles in the upcoming CBC Kids series Glowbles, and will be back on stage in March, in Pyretic Productions’ Blood of Our Soil at the Tarragon Extra Space. See Lisa in Eldritch Theatre's Space Opera Zero, at the Red Sandcastle Theatre, until Dec 2.Tickets: eldritchtheatre.ca/tickets
Rob Kempson is a theatre artist and educator. A graduate of queen’s university, rob works as a playwright, director, and performer. Writer/director: Mockingbird (Next Stage Theatre Festival); Shannon 10:40 (Timeshare); explicit (Rhubarb Festival); #legacy (Harbourfront Centre); in my own skin (YRDSB); the HV project (Community); intersections (TDSB Arts co-op). Director: Violet’s the pilot, Rose’s Clothes (Thousand Islands Playhouse); Songs for a New World (Claude Watson). As a performer, he was most recently seen starring in his Dora-nominated musical The Way Back to Thursday (Theatre Passe Muraille). He was a member of the 2014 Stratford Festival Playwrights’ Retreat, and is currently a resident artist educator at Young People’s Theatre and the Associate Artistic Director at the Thousand Islands Playhouse.http://www.robkempson.com Twitter: @rob_kempsonTrigonometryGabriella wants action. Jackson wants a scholarship. Susan wants a family. In this new play by Rob Kempson, three disparate people find themselves bound together by desire, destiny, and a few scandalous photos. Trigonometry is about how far we go to get what we want: what we do to survive.https://trigonometrytheplay.com/Stageworthy:http://www.stageworthypodcast.com Twitter @stageworthyPod Facebook: http://facebook.com/stageworthyPod
Alison MacDonald is a Jessie Award winning performer who has worked across Canada as a singer, actor, teacher, and producer. Recently, she made an album of 1950s/60s tunes and coming up, she will be reprising one of her favourite roles ever - "Patsy Cline" in A Closer Walk with Patsy Cline at Thousand Islands Playhouse. @thisisalimacwww.alisonmacdonald.caStageworthy:http://www.stageworthypodcast.com Twitter @stageworthyPod Facebook: http://facebook.com/stageworthyPod
Michelle Ramsay, a Toronto-based lighting designer, agreed to be my guinea pig for episode one of the podcast. This is the first of two 30 min sessions we taped. Here is Michelle's bio (updated March 18 2014)Michelle is a lighting designer for dance and theatre based in Toronto.Companies she has designed with include: Modern Times, Cahoots Theatre Company, Blue Ceiling Dance, fu-Gen, The Theatre Centre, Thousand Islands Playhouse, Stand Up Dance, New Harlem, Shaw Festival, Human Cargo, Theatre Rusticle, National Arts Centre, Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, Native Earth Performing Arts, Mirvish Productions, Theatre Passe Muraille and Tarragon Theatre. She has received several Dora Mavor Moore Awards, a SATAward, and in 2008 she received the Pauline McGibbon Award.The beginning has a few rough audio spots, with some "peakyness" but I should be able to iron out the problems in the future.In the interview we refer to "Wonderland" and failed to give any context. Canada's Wonderland is an amusement park north of Toronto, ON, and was a training ground for many young technicians just out of school. Other things we glanced over: The Shaw FestivalTheatre Smith GilmoreTheatre ColumbusTheatre KingstonRedManual Lighting Boards