Category Archives: Theatre

4 Questions: Sarah Thorpe

Sarah Thorpe has worked since graduating in a costume house, at box office jobs, in performance-based contracts for interactive exhibits and escape games, standardized patient work, and modeling for life-drawing and other art classes. In 2009, with a desire to direct and create, she co-founded the Toronto-based indie company Soup Can Theatre to explore contemporary issues and societal challenges, offering audiences theatrical experiences that are both entertaining and enriching.

4 Questions: Patrick Galligan

Patrick Galligan (MFA Acting 1988) is a long-standing member of the performing ensemble of the Shaw Festival where he continues to garner accolades for his performances. This article is part of our series 50 Years of Disruption, in celebration of the Department of Theatre’s 50th Anniversary. In it, we’ll ask each participant four questions about themselves …

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4 Questions: Sara Meurling

Sara Meurling (BA Theatre 1985) has had a long and distinguished career in arts administration. Her accomplishments include serving as General Manager of the Young Centre for the Performing Arts, Managing Director of the Factory Theatre, President of the Board of STAF and for Theatre Gargantua, and a member of the Board of the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts and the Toronto Arts Council Theatre Committee. She was appointed Executive Director of the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres (PACT) in the fall of 2014.

Spotlight on Faculty: Heather Fitzsimmons Frey

1) Who are you? My name is Heather Fitzsimmons Frey and I am a Banting Post-Doctoral Fellow at York.  I’m working with Marlis Schweitzer in Theatre Studies in Art, Media, Performance and Design. One of the reasons she is a great mentor for me is that we are both interested in performance-based historiography—that is, the …

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4 Questions: Luke Reece

Luke Reece is a producer, playwright, poet and educator. He is the Producer for Canada’s leading culturally specific theatre company, Obsidian Theatre, and also works to offer opportunities to empower and support young-in-craft artists with his collective, Little Black Afro Theatre, creating spaces for artists to develop work with and for the communities they come from. In addition to his accomplishments in theatre, in 2017, Luke was the Toronto Poetry Slam (TPS) Grand Champion.

4 Questions: Gail Packwood

Gail Packwood is currently Executive Director for the Associated Designers of Canada. She shares her career trajectory with us, including a positions in company management and production for Mirvish Production, Associate Producer for the Canadian Stage Company, and as an Arts Management Fellow at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

4 Questions: Lucy Powis

Dramaturg Lucy Powis (BA Theatre 2015) joins us to talk about her path since leaving York, which has taken her to Columbia University and a number of important theatres in the US, plus what was most striking about her time at York. Lucy credits opportunities she had in the Devised Theatre series of courses, as well as what she learned as one of the co-artistic directors of playGround, that forced her to broaden her skill set.

4 Questions: Stafford Arima

Stafford Arima (BFA Theatre 1992) was appointed the artistic director of Theatre Calgary last year. Prior to that, he had a thriving career in the New York theatre scene for nearly 20 years, including being the first Asian Canadian to direct a musical on Broadway with Allegiance played at the Longacre Theatre, starring George Takei and …

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