Week 1/November 19-23, 2025
*Please note that this production is held in Alumnae’s Studio Theatre, which is not wheelchair accessible.*
“Dirt and Oranges” by Beatriz Yuste
BEATRIZ YUSTE/ PLAYWRIGHT
Beatriz has written for stage and screen and worked as an actress in theatre, television, and film for almost twenty-five years. She is Spanish-Canadian and fluent in Spanish, French, and English. She brings a unique perspective to her work, leaning into Spanish culture and language, women over 50, dystopian worlds, social commentary, and anti-heroines. Her one-act play Dirt and Oranges is her first production at the Alumnae Theatre. Beatriz is currently a resident of the 2025 Norman Jewison Writer’s Lab at the Canadian Film Centre.
ILANA LINDEN/DIRECTOR
Theatre director, visual artist, actor, and filmmaker, Ilana founded Montreal’s Bulldog Productions Theatre Company, producing exciting theatre including David Mamet’s Oleanna, winner of the Masque Award for best English language production, and directing Terrance McNally’s Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune, Wendy Wasserstein’s The Heidi Chronicles, and Homeward Bound by Elliot Hayes. In 2005 Ilana wrote and directed Josef’s Daughter, a feature documentary that aired nationally on CBC’s The Passionate Eye. A member of Alumnae since 2018, Ilana directed the Mainstage productions of The Heidi Chronicles by Wendy Wasserstein and Other Desert Cities by Jon Robin Baitz.
RAIZA RODRIGUES/MARTINA
Raiza Rodrigues is a Brazilian-Canadian actor and filmmaker. She graduated in Musicfrom the Arts University of Paraná, Brazil, and has an extensive career in the film industry. She fell in love with acting at the age of fourteen when she starred in the play A Aurora da Minha Vida, written by Naum Alves de Sousa. Since then, acting has never left her heart, and she is now thrilled to be part of this festival and to collaborate with such an inspiring group of artists at the Alumnae Theatre!
BENJAMIN EARL/HAYDEN
Benjamin Earl is an actor and musician from Toronto and a graduate of the Theatre Studies program at the University of Guelph. While acting in both theatre and film, he is also a guitarist and singer in the Toronto rock n’ roll band The Thick and the folk and blues band The Gatke Brothers. He wants to thank his family, friends, and partner for their support and for inspiring his soul with their love and ambition. Selected theatre credits: Prince Eric (The Little Mermaid, TYT), Man (Apothecary, Silver Linings Productions), Kenickie (Grease, Hart House), and Vincent (The Halcyon, The Luscombe Theatre). @ben_rosie on Instagram.
“There Were No Birds to Fly” by Elaine Freedman
In the not-distant-enough future. of climate change, an ex-corporate lawyer, Wanda, is living in subtropical Yukon with her disabled teenage daughter, Alice. One afternoon, Wanda’s ex-wife, Carla, MBA and CEO of The Company in BC’s lower mainland, suddenly appears and threatens to turn their comfortable world upside down.
ELAINE FREEDMAN/ PLAYWRIGHT
Elaine Freedman has been an avid theatre goer since childhood. About thirty-five years ago, she started volunteering at the Village Playhouse and then Alumnae Theatre, playing many offstage roles. On the VP play-reading committee, Elaine has read hundreds of plays and was inspired to write her own. After several readings through the Alumnae New Play Development group, she produced her first, Alas, Poor Romeo, at VP. Elaine has written another full-length play plus several shorts ranging from three to thirty-five minutes. There Were No Birds to Fly is her third play to have gone through Next Stage and Big Ideas.
MOLLY THOM/DIRECTOR
Molly Thom is best known as the author and director of the much-loved play about Canadian pioneer writers, The Bush-Ladies (National Arts Centre, Tarragon Theatre, Artword Theatre, and Ontario tour.) Directing credits include many other premieres: Shirley Barrie’s Beautiful Lady, Tell Me…for 4th Line Theatre, Millbrook, The Gambler by Ronald Weihs for Beggarly Theatre/Artword Theatre, and for Alumnae Theatre: Caryl Churchill’s Fen, Pam Gems’ Camille, Timberlake Wertenbaker’s The Love of the Nightingale, the Quebec feminist collective, La Nef des sorcières, and most recently Shirley Barrie’s I Am Marguerite. Her Toronto premiere of Carol Shields’ Thirteen Hands appeared on the Best Of lists of the Toronto Star, NOW Magazine and CBC Radio. She is the resident director of Shoestring Opera, founding producer of Alumnae’s FireWorks Festival, and co-founder of its New Ideas Festival.
NATALIE STEPHENSON/WANDA
Hailing from the merry old land of Oz, Natalie has made Toronto her home since January 2022. She is a graduate of QUT (Theatre Studies) and The Actors Class (London UK), and her recent credits include Shadows in the Nooks (Alumnae), Terror by Gaslight (Bloor Village), and Age of Arousal (Alumnae). Natalie is delighted to be a part of the New Ideas Festival again.
ELIZABETH FRIESEN/CARLA
Elizabeth Friesen is a Toronto-based actor, singer, playwright, director, producer, and dramaturge. An out-of-the-box thinker who enjoys creative collaboration and experimentation, she is always looking to expand her community of like-minded individuals. She is an active member of Alumnae Theatre (Play Selection Committee), ACT II Studio at TMU (Board of Directors — Chair of the Program Committee), and Bloor West Village Playhouse (Play Selection Committee). She is also a founding member of the Moss Theatre Collective, whose inaugural production of George F. Walker’s Fierce received critical acclaim. Elizabeth is currently working on several projects with George F. Walker, as well as on her own solo show. Most importantly, Elizabeth is the loving mother of two incredible young people and eight fabulous felines.
VIOLET BROWN/ALICE
Violet Brown is a multidisciplinary artist with a background in acting, singing, and dancing. She is a Brock University graduate in Dramatic Arts (Concentration in Performance) where she received formal training in theatre performance. She is thrilled to be making her post-secondary debut with Alumnae Theatre in the 2025 New Ideas Festival and is deeply grateful for the opportunity to bring this story to life with such a talented and welcoming team. A special thank you to her supportive parents, Carol and Devon, loving partner Morgan, and amazing friends.
JOHN ACUNA/STAGE MANAGER
This is John’s second stint as Stage Manager. His first was during NIF 2023 for Recipe for a Riot Grrrl. John began his theatre life with the Village Players in 2019 as set builder and lights/sound ops. John helped produce several plays for the Village, beginning with Love Letters in 2021 to On the Air (opening in January 2026). Most recently, John assisted in producing the 2025 Barrie Theatre Festival with Theatre By The Bay. Fact – John was producer or tech of Alumnae-developed Gloria’s Guy and Nested (online) and Old Coots Commune (online) at the Village Players
“Lisaveta’s Journey” by Rosalind Goldsmith
Lisaveta lives in an apocalyptic world. A climate disaster has ravaged her home. She is alone. Without food or water, she must try to escape the farm to survive. “Lisaveta’s Journey” is a survival story about love.
ROSALIND GOLDSMITH/ PLAYWRIGHT
Rosalind trained at RADA and performed at the Shaw Festival, Magnus Theatre, Tarragon Theatre Extra Space, and Alumnae Theatre (among others) and for CBC Radio Drama. She then wrote radio plays for CBC Radio Drama and a play for the Blyth Theatre Festival. Subsequently, she began to write short fiction. Her short stories have been published in literary journals in Canada, the UK, and the USA, including the Temz Review, Fairlight Books, The Lincoln Review, Fiction International and The Masters Review. Her first collection of short stories, Inside the House Inside, was published in April of this year by Ronsdale Press.
SVJETLANA JAKLENEC/DIRECTOR + DRAMATURGE
Svjetlana Jaklenec, an alumna of The Norman Jewison Director’s Lab and TV Writers’ Lab at the Canadian Film Centre, writes and directs for theatre, TV, and film. Her shorts have screened internationally, and her feature scripts were developed with Telefilm Canada, Corus Entertainment, and the Harold Greenberg Fund. In 2018, she directed Tena Štivičić’s Two of Us at the Toronto Fringe. With extensive art direction experience, Svjetlana earned a 2020 Canadian Screen Award nomination for her work on the period musical Stand!.
REBECA COSTA REIS/NARRATOR 1
A Brazilian actor, dancer, and singer, Rebeca discovered her passion for the performing arts at the age of six when she started taking ballet lessons and joined her school theatre group. She studied Musical Theatre Performance at the Randolph College for the Performing Arts in 2021. She recently worked as assistant director and stage manager for Marcio Beauclair’s Public Enemy, written by Olivier Choinière, at the Alumnae Theatre. She is an admitted linguaphile, fluently speaking Portuguese, English, and Spanish while working on her French.
KIMBERLY VAN VO/NARRATOR 2
Kimberly is a Canadian-Vietnamese-French multidisciplinary actor, dancer, and storyteller. She is a graduate of The William Esper Studio in New York City. Before trading Toronto for The Big Apple, she studied Theatre at the University of Ottawa and The Second City Training Center. With various theatre and film credits, she expanded into filmmaking and will debut her first short feature – an extension of her one-woman show – in 2026. Kimberly is also the founder and artistic director of Studio 5: The Collective, a Meisner-based theatre ensemble dedicated to diverse storytelling and amplifying unsung, marginalized voices.
VICA PELIVAN/NARRATOR 3
Vica Pelivan has long pursued acting in the desire to explore the essence of all human life. Acting allows her to study different circumstances, wants, needs, struggles, and values of people from all walks of life. Her art is mainly fueled by her Croatian culture, her many animals, her shaman father, and her strong mother. She had the honour to play Lord Foppington in The Relapse, directed by Jeannette Lambermont-Morey, and Bernice in The Gravitational Pull of Bernice Trimble, directed by Tanisha Taitt. Vica graduated from George Brown Theatre College, where she trained in Alexander and Meisner Techniques, classical text, contemporary works, movement work, voice work, and speech work. She has been training for the last ten years with many professionals, including Marie Farsi, Peter Pasyk, Evan Builing, Kwaku Okyere, Kostadinka Velkovska, Ksenija Prohaska, and Aaron Willis. When she is not acting, she is giving acting classes and training independently to become a director.
ANNABEL PEARSON/STAGE MANAGER
Annabel Pearson (she/they) is a Welsh-Canadian stage manager and theatre maker based in Toronto. A graduate of TMU’s Performance Production program, Annabel brings a blend of
technical knowledge, artistic insight, and creative collaboration to her projects. Primarily focusing on immersive storytelling and movement-based performances, she hopes to create
inclusive and thought-provoking experiences for audiences in the GTA. ASM credits include THAW (Legs On The Wall/Luminato) and R.A.V.E. (Outside the March). SM credits include The
Suffering (Fatal Shapes) and Mutual Aim (ZEST Creative/Toronto Fringe). When she’s not on headset, you’ll probably find her talking about Star Wars.
*Special Thanks to Movement Director Camille Stopps and Sound Composer Aidan Goldsmith.
“Heel” by Paige Prystupa
After years of performing at half-empty Legions, the women of All Out West Wrestling are getting restless. While some still find power and passion in the ring, others are deciding whether it’s time to move on to new things.
PAIGE PRYSTUPA/ PLAYWRIGHT
Paige Prystupa is a set and costume designer and first-time playwright. Originally from Calgary, Paige has designed various plays and musicals in the city and elsewhere. The Frozen Deep at Calgary Young People’s Theatre and Fairground at the Shaw Festival are her favourites. Paige is always looking to try new things and is currently enjoying her time swimming in the ocean of playwriting.
DANA FRADKIN/DIRECTOR
Dana Fradkin is a director, writer, and actor. Most recently, she directed Cendrillon and The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland with the University of Ottawa. Other directing credits include Bernstein’s Mass at the Performing Arts Centre in St. Catharines, The Music Shop (Vancouver Opera), Little Women, Community Creation, and Women Wisdom and Wit (Wilfrid Laurier University), The Laurels and The Perfect Screw (Glenn Gould School), and Hansel and Gretel (the University of Ottawa) and was revival director for Brundibár (Canadian Children’s Opera Company). As an assistant director, she’s worked with the Canadian Opera Company, Vancouver Opera, Opera on the Avalon, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, and Against the Grain Theatre. Upcoming, Dana is directing the operatic short film The Laurels.
ARDYTH JOHNSON/BETSY
Ardyth Johnson first trained with mime artist Adrian Pecknold at The Manitoba Theatre School in Winnipeg. She was then awarded a scholarship from The Manitoba Theatre Centre to continue her studies at Mime Unlimited School of Physical Theatre in Toronto (founded by Jacques Lecoq, with Ron East as principal), where she graduated. Her training also includes studies with other masters in Mime, Corporeal Mime, Commedia dell’arte, Clown, Bouffon, Movement Studies, Slapstick, Stage Combat, Mask, and Comedy. Ardyth holds a B.A. in Theatre Studies from the University of Winnipeg and is a graduate of the Second City Conservatory. She has toured extensively throughout North America with Mime Unlimited, Theatre Beyond Words, and many other professional companies.
CYDNEY WATSON/JO
Cydney Watson (she/her) is an emerging Toronto-based theatre artist and recent graduate of York University’s Acting Conservatory. As a performer, she is passionate about ambitious, out-of-the-box theatre and values opportunities that challenge her through complex characters and physical transformation. As a creator, she enjoys collaborating with artists who share her values and exploring the complexities of the human experience. Cydney hopes to continue advocating for Queer women in the arts and is grateful to be sharing Jo alongside the incredible women of Heel! Recent credits include The Bluffs (Toronto Fringe 2024), She Kills Monsters and People, Places, and Things (Theatre@York2025). Instagram: @cydneywatson_
FABIANA MERCURIO/CARMEN
Fabiana holds a Bachelor of Education and a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Theatre Production) from York University. Her recent credits include costume designer for Alumnae Theatre’s Fierce and Better Living, as well as assistant talent manager for Fever/Netflix’s Stranger Things: The Experience. Fabiana is excited to step away from behind the scenes for a moment on the stage. This is the first stage acting role Fabiana has had in her adult life, and it will hopefully not be the last! She would like to thank the Heel team for their creativity and curiosity throughout this process.
LILLY BATTISTA/DANI
Lilly Battista, a Toronto-based actor, is fueled by her deep commitment to character work and a fervent presence in both classical and contemporary theatre. Her recent graduation from the BFA Acting program at the University of Windsor has allowed her to take on a variety of projects, including The Play That Goes Wrong (dir. Alice Nelson) and Little Women (dir. Kerry Ann Doherty), both of which showcased her dedication to character work and devised and movement-based storytelling. She is so excited to be working on Heel and is grateful to be a part of the process.
KATELYN DOYLE/LOLA
Katelyn Doyle (she/her) is a classically trained Canadian actor and creator, currently based in Toronto. She is a co-founding member of Half Blind Owl, a theatre collective united by a playful commitment to creating innovative, offbeat, and compelling Canadian theatre that doesn’t shy away from the strange and wonderful. She is consistently looking for work that sheds a light on the abnormality of humanity. Her work has been featured at Fantasia Film Festival, Blood in the Snow, Femtasia Fest, programsound.fm, and beyond. For a detailed outline of Katelyn’s work and credits, check out her website at www.katelyndoyle.com.
MAYA GRANIC/AMI
Maya Granic is an actor and dancer based in Toronto, Canada. Growing up as a dancer, she discovered her love for acting after playing Clara in The Nutcracker, and she attended an arts high school where she majored in acting and went on to graduate from George Brown Theatre School. She now works in film and theatre in Toronto, beginning to create the work she’d like to see in the industry! Select credits include The Ensemble (Second City visiting production/Toronto Fringe 2025), DINO Intensive – Rock Bottom Movement (Guelph Dance Festival), Painting by Numbers (Toronto Fringe 2024/Movement coordinator), Audrey in As You Like It (GBTS, Aaron Willis), Dark of the Moon (GBTS, Rosanna Saracino), The Relapse (GBTS, Jeanette Lambermont-Morey), and Venice Preserved (GBTS, Jordan Pettle). Her film and TV credits include Bride in There Goes the Bride (Olivia Ellis Productions/Destined Productions).
ELENA AHMED/BABY WYKNOUSKI
Elena Ahmed (she/her), originally from Mississauga, is a stage and screen actor currently studying in the Performance: Acting program at Toronto Metropolitan University. Her credits include her most recent performance as The Pacifier in ClownX: Guts N’ Glory, a series of solo clown pieces in cooperation with TMU. She also played the lead role of Rose in the film When Eddie Came Home, directed by Lily Bogdanis. Elena is thrilled to bring to life the energetic character of Baby Wyknouski in this production of Heel. She wishes to continue finding play in every moment on stage and off.
SUKI CHEUNG/STAGE MANAGER
Suki, an interdisciplinary artist from Hong Kong, is a mentee of Marjorie Chan, Artistic Director of Theatre Passe Muraille, under the TAC Newcomer and Refugee Artist Mentorship Programme. She holds a first-class honours Bachelor’s degree from the Education University of Hong Kong and a Master’s from Goldsmiths, University of London. Her artistic journey spans Hong Kong, London, and Toronto, where she gained international experience in theatre production. Her credits include the Edinburgh Fringe 2018, West End New Musical Festival, and the 37th New Ideas Festival. In April and May, she wrote and directed 1+2+3, an immersive play staged in a local café, now set for remounting across the GTA. Instagram @suki_cy_cheung
SIOBHAN RICHARDSON/FIGHT COORDINATOR
Siobhan’s work as a fight director and/or intimacy director has appeared at The Canadian Opera Company (where she is the resident Fight and Intimacy Director), The Shaw Festival, the National Arts Centre, The Stratford Festival, and numerous others. She’s also an actor/fighter/singer/dancer and an internationally recognized stage combat and intimacy instructor, having completed three European tours to nine different countries. Always infusing Joyfulness and Curiosity into the work, Siobhan is dedicated to the growth and development of the art forms, the artists, and the workplaces, where clear communication and artistic exploration makes space for adventurous exploration.
MATT OUIMET/COMPOSER
Matt is a musical composer known for Pig Goat Banana Cricket (2015), Jeremy and Jazzy (2022), The Supers, the Stoners and the Big Bad (2022) and Thomas & Friends: All Engines Go (2021).
