Jeff Cohen

Playwright

Jeff Cohen’s award winning career in the theater spans almost 4 decades as producer, director, playwright, actor and professor.  Before founding Burke Cohen Entertainment Jeff created and was artistic director of three significant Off Broadway theater companies: The R.A.P.P. Arts Center (now the Connelly Theatre), The Worth Street Theater Company/ Tribeca Playhouse and the Dog Run Repertory Theater Company.  Highlights of his work include the Drama Desk Award winning Tribeca Playhouse Stage Door Canteen – a response to the attacks of 9/11, the New York premiere of Christopher Shinn’s Four, the world premiere of Tristine Skyler’s The Moonlight Room and the Off Broadway revival of Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart starring Raul Esparza and Joanna Gleason. Jeff’s work has won every major theatrical award short of the Tony, including Drama Desk, Lucille Lortel, Drama League, Outer Critics, Obie and AUDELCO and has annual Ten Best Critic’s Pick selections in such publications as The New York Times, The New York Post, Time Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, The New Yorker, New York Magazine, The Boston Globe, The LA Weekly, The Star-Ledger and The City Paper. Jeff’s plays include Righteous, The Soap Myth, The Man Who Ate Michael Rockefeller and Men of Clay.  As musician, Jeff was lead singer and song-writer for the new-wave rock band Ernie and The Imports whose album “Made In America” was recorded at Electric Lady Studios and garnered the selection “Top Album Picks” in Billboard Magazine.

Sarah Orenstein

Director

Sarah has appeared on stages across Canada, from her hometown of Halifax to the Queen Charlotte Islands, winning multiple awards in her career. Some of her many Film and T.V. credits include the film Albatross and the series Station Eleven and Less than Kosher. Selected theatre credits: 13 seasons at Shaw Festival, including Millionairess, Blithe Spirit , Councillor at Law and Heartbreak House, Tarragon Theatre including Patience, Collected Works of Billy The Kid, Scorched (Canadian tour) and The Message, 5 seasons at Stratford Festival, including Shakespeare in Love, Birds of a Kind and Nathan the Wise. She Is strongly committed to new play development and mentoring the next generation of actors and directors.

Jessica Greenberg

Annie

Jessica (she/her) is Studio 180’s Director of Youth and Community Engagement, a co-creator of the IN CLASS program, and a core member of the company since 2004. She is a Dora-nominated actor and a leader in drama education with a passion for promoting youth empowerment and building community through theatre. As an actor she has performed on stages across Canada and the US, including Studio 180, Canadian Stage, Crow’s Theatre, Mirvish Productions, Project: Humanity, Magnus Theatre, YPT, The Citadel, MTYP, Passe Muraille, Thousand Islands Playhouse, Theatre New Brunswick, Willow Cabin Theatre and Theatreworks/USA. She has appeared on The Handmaid’s Tale, Murdoch Mysteries and Being Erica as well as the animated series Fish ‘n Chips. At Studio 180 Jessica oversees all education and Beyond the Stage programming including the creation of study guide resources and the curation of lobby exhibits, chats, panels, talkbacks and other special events. She worked as Education Coordinator for ARCfest: Toronto’s Human Rights Arts Festival, as the Director of Child Engagement for the Child-ish Collective, and is an NTS Drama Festival adjudicator and an instructor at Centennial College’s Theatre Performance program. Jessica holds an Honours BA in political science and women’s studies from McGill University and completed her classical acting training at Circle in the Square Theatre School in New York and as an apprentice at the Actors Theatre of Louisville in Kentucky.

Ron Lea

Milton

Ron has worked in many theatres across the country over the last 40 years. Recent credits include; Kill the Poor (Assembly Theatre), My Name Is Asher Lev (Studio 180/Harold Green Jewish Theatre), First Dates (the Toronto Fringe), Sweat (Studio 180/Canadian Stage). Select credits include Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman (Winnipeg Jewish Theatre), August (Alberta Theatre Projects), December Man (Green Thumb Theatre/Prairie Theatre Exchange). Betrayal at WJT, Motel Plays (Factory Theatre), and One Eyed Kings (Tarragon Theatre), and many shows at Centaur Theatre. Ron is a 2 time “My Entertainment Awards” nominee, and has worked extensively in Film and Television, and is an ACTRA award winner and 5 time nominee.

Alex Poch-Goldin

Daniel/Others

Alex is a Dora and Meta award-winning actor and has worked extensively in theatre, including Oslo (Mirvish/Studio 180), Disgraced, (Mirvish), The Dybbuk, Ma Rainey (Soulpepper) Angels In America, Harper Regan (Canadian Stage), Scorched (Tarragon), Bang Bang, Asher Lev (RMTC) and in film and television (Burden of Truth, Nurses, The Kennedy’s, Cardinal, Suits, Dark Matter, Private Eyes, The Calling). He is also an internationally produced playwright and librettist. He has developed projects for CBC, Bravo! and was a nominee for the Siminovitch Prize for playwriting. His play The Great Shadow will be produced this summer at 4th Line Theatre.

Maria Ricossa

Esther/Brenda

For over 30 years Maria has worked in Film, Television, Radio and Theatre in both the US and Canada. As a member of the Stratford Festival for 5 Seasons she played leading roles in King Lear, Twelfth Night, Measure for Measure, Much Ado About Nothing, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Twelfth Night, Measure for Measure and Hamlet. Other theatre work includes roles at the Tarragon Theatre, Canadian Stage, Necessary Angel, Nightwood Theatre, The Storefront Theatre, The Manitoba Theatre Center, The Harold Green Jewish Theatre and Studio 180. Maria has been a series lead, guest star and recurring character on TV series including Ransom, The Strain, Flashpoint, The Good Witch and CTV’s Designated Survivor. Leading roles in feature films include The Inlaws, Some Things That Stay and The Space Between. Maria teaches Acting for Film and TV at Humber College and currently is an on-set Acting coach for the Netflix series Tiny Pretty Things. Maria is also a street photographer whose photographs have been featured in photo publications and in the Contact Photography Festival.

James Fritz

Playwright

James Fritz is a multi-award-winning writer from South London, whose plays for stage and radio include Four Minutes Twelve Seconds, Parliament Square, Ross & Rachel, Start Swimming, The Fall, Comment Is Free, Death of A Cosmonaut and Lava. He has won the Critics Circle Theatre Award for Most Promising Playwright, a Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting and the Imison and Tinniswood BBC Audio Drama Awards, the first time a writer has won both in the same year. He has also been nominated for an Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre, a BBC Radio Award for Best Single Drama, and was named runner-up in the 2013 Verity Bargate Award. He is a graduate of both the Channel Four Screenwriting Program and the BBC TV Drama Writers Program and has a number of original television series in development.

Mark McGrinder

Director

Mark is the Artistic Director of Studio 180 Theatre. His Studio 180 performing credits include Oslo, The Nether, You Will Remember Me, Clybourne Park and Stuff Happens. He has been a director and/or dramaturg(e) for many of Studio 180’s IN DEVELOPMENT projects and, as the program’s coordinator, has worked to connect creators with the appropriate collaborators required to bring their visions to the stage. He adapted and directed Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die, Cherish, Perish for PANAMANIA, directed Standing on Ceremony: The Gay Marriage Plays and worked as Associate Director for Blackbird, God of Carnage and Studio 180’s 10th Anniversary reading of The Laramie Project. Mark was a member of the acting ensemble at the Shaw Festival for five seasons and he performed in several reviews with The Second City’s National touring company. He has been head or co-writer on several collective creations (Single and Sexy, That Artz Show and The Berlin Show) and his play MacHamlet was presented as part of the Alumnae Theatre’s New Ideas Festival. As an artist educator he has worked with high school, college and university students in and beyond the GTA and is continually inspired by the passion and vision of the young artists he has had the good fortune to connect with.

Vivien Endicott-Douglas

Cara

Vivien is a Toronto born film, television and theatre artist. She has worked with some of Canada’s foremost theatre companies including Canadian Stage, Tarragon Theatre, The National Arts Centre, Factory Theatre, Theatre Aquarius, Crow’s Theatre and Toronto indie favourites; Volcano, The Coal Mine, Shakespeare in the Ruff and the Summerworks Performance Festival. Her work in Lo or Dear Mr. Wells (Nightwood Theatre) and Guarded Girls (Tarragon Theatre) garnered her two back to back Dora Mavor Moore Outstanding Performance Award nominations. Vivien was nominated for an ACTRA Outstanding Performance Award for her work in the feature film The Shape of Rex and has featured in numerous other films and television series. Her recent favourites include; Sarah Polley’s latest feature film Women Talking, Justin Baldoni’s feature Clouds (Disney+) and the TV series New Eden (Crave TV). A recent graduate of the Canadian Film Centre Actor’s Conservatory, Vivien is currently completing her short film Grandma was a Cowgirl which she produced, directed, wrote and stars in.

Ngabo Nabea

Nick

Though born in Toronto, Ngabo Nabea spent much of his childhood travelling and studying abroad. He returned to Toronto to study theatre performance at Ryerson University. His first experience working with Studio 180 was for a reading of Common by Marie-Beath Badian as part of their new works IN DEVELOPMENT program. Upon graduating, he has performed in various shows around Toronto, including leads in Twisted (Factory Theatre), The Postman (Appledore Productions, Pan Am Games), The Numbers Game (Storefront Theatre), I and You (Globe Theatre), As You Like It and Fences (Grand Theatre). He has continued to hone his skills with the Factory Theatre Mechanicals and the Stratford Birmingham Conservatory and in 2022 performed in Death and the King’s Horseman and Hamlet at the Stratford Festival. He has also appeared in various TV shows, including Pretty Hard Cases, The Strain, Salvation and The Expanse. Ngabo is also an avid self-taught illustrator, having recently drawn promotional artwork for events hosted by Stratford Theatre, Suddenspark Collective and Soulpepper.

Geoffrey Pounsett

David

Selected Theatre (Acting): War Horse (Mirvish); If We Were Birds, No Great Mischief, Alias Godot (Tarragon); Leisure Society, Zadie’s Shoes (Factory); Fire (Charlottetown Festival, Theatre Calgary – Betty nomination); Doubt (Theatre Northwest); Tuesdays With Morrie (TIP); You Will Remember Me, Games, How Do I Love Thee? (ATP); A Few Good Men, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Neptune); Moon For The Misbegotten (Watermark); The Miser, The Game of Love & Chance, Three Days of Rain (STC); Romeo & Juliet, Juno & The Paycock, Cyrano (Stratford), Oslo (Studio 180 Theatre). Selected Theatre (Directing): As You Like It (GBTS); Brown Bull of Cuilange, Red Machine (The Room); Western (NSTF); A Quiet Place (NSTF – Dora nomination); The Swearing Jar (Best of Fringe); The Seagull (LabCab). Recent Film & TV: It (New Line), Impulse (YouTube), Private Eyes (Global), The Girlfriend Experience (Starz).

Zorana Sadiq

Di

Zorana is a Dora-winning actor and singer who has performed throughout Canada and the U.S. Recent Theatre: Towards Youth (Crow’s Theatre/Project Humanity), CHILD-ISH (Summerworks) and Bend it Like Beckham (Starvox), Helen’s Necklace (Canadian Rep. Theatre), The Enchanted Loom (Cahoots Theatre/Factory Theatre), Dido and Aeneas: 21st Century Remix (Soulpepper Global Cabaret), Sultans of the Street (Young People’s Theatre), Melancholiac (Bad New Days) and Tout Comme Elle (Necessary Angel Theatre). Film/TV: Strays, In the Dark, Designated Survivor, Kim’s Convenience, the Gill Deacon Show, Little Mosque on the Prairie, ZeD: Candid, The Mulroney’s and Burnt Toast (Rhombus Media – CBC: Opening Night and BravoFact!). As a new-music soprano, recent appearances include Eleven Moons (Boston Musica Viva), Afghanistan: Requiem for a Generation (Vancouver Symphony, Calgary Philharmonic), Ainadamar (Los Angelos Philharmonic), Air India: Redacted (Turningpoint Ensemble), Airline Icarus (Soundstreams). Her solo show, MixTape opens this fall at Crow’s Theatre.

Eleanor Burgess

Playwright

Eleanor Burgess’s work has been produced at Manhattan Theatre Club, McCarter Theatre Center, Geffen Playhouse, Huntington Theatre Company, the Alliance Theatre, Writers Theatre, Finborough Theatre, Milwaukee Rep, Geva Theatre Center, Merrimack Repertory Theatre, the Contemporary American Theatre Festival, Portland Stage Company, and Centenary Stage, and developed with The New Group, New York Theatre Workshop, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Salt Lake Acting Company, the Lark Play Development Center, and the Kennedy Center/NNPN MFA Playwrights Workshop. She has been a member of the Dorothy Strelsin New American Writers Group at Primary Stages, Page 73’s writers’ group Interstate 73, The Civilians’ R&D Group, and New York Theatre Workshop’s 2050 Fellowship. She has also been a staff writer for Perry Mason on HBO. Originally from Brookline, Massachusetts, she studied history at Yale College and Dramatic Writing at NYU/Tisch.

Kimberley Rampersad

Director

As an actor Kimberley has appeared in various theatres across Canada including Mirvish, RMTC, Stratford and Shaw Festivals. Her work as a choreographer has been recognized with two Dora nominations for Passing Strange (Musical Stage/Obsidian) and Seussical – the Musical (YPT), respectively and an Evie Award for Matilda – The Musical (Royal MTC/ Citadel/ Arts Club). As a director, Kimberley was featured in the New York Times for directing a full- length production of Man and Superman at the Shaw Festival. Other directing credits include How Black Mothers Say I Love You (GCTC) (2018 Prix Rideau Award – Outstanding Production) and The Color Purple (Neptune and Citadel/ Royal MTC) which received Sterling and Merritt Awards for Outstanding Direction and Productions amongst others. In the community she contributes to the work of the Philp Akin – Black Shoulders Legacy Award, Gina’s Prize, and sits on the board of AFC. Kimberley is currently the Associate Artistic Director of the Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario.

Natasha Mumba

Zoe

Natasha Mumba is a Zambian artist currently based in Toronto. She is a graduate of the Acting program at The National Theatre School of Canada and a Dora Nominated actress whose recent credits include: Canadian Stage: ​Measure for Measure;​ Shaw Festival: ​Henry V​, ​The Adventures of the Black Girl;​ Obsidian Theatre: ​School Girls; Or the African Mean Girls Play​; Factory Theatre: ​Trout Stanley, Acts of Faith​. She also recently served as the Apprentice Artistic Director at Factory Theatre with the generous support of the Metcalf Foundation. Her directing credits include; Driftwood Trafalgar: ​Balance​; Factory Theatre: ​Lady Sunrise​ (Assistant Director); YPT: ​The Water Gun Song​; she is also Nominated for the Pauline McGibbon Emerging Director Award.

Maria Ricossa

Janine

For over 30 years Maria has worked in Film, Television, Radio and Theatre in both the US and Canada. As a member of the Stratford Festival for 5 Seasons she played leading roles in King Lear, Twelfth Night, Measure for Measure, Much Ado About Nothing, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Twelfth Night, Measure for Measure and Hamlet. Other theatre work includes roles at the Tarragon Theatre, Canadian Stage, Necessary Angel, Nightwood Theatre, The Storefront Theatre, The Manitoba Theatre Center, The Harold Green Jewish Theatre and Studio 180. Maria has been a series lead, guest star and recurring character on TV series including Ransom, The Strain, Flashpoint, The Good Witch and CTV’s Designated Survivor. Leading roles in feature films include The Inlaws, Some Things That Stay and The Space Between. Maria teaches Acting for Film and TV at Humber College and currently is an on-set Acting coach for the Netflix series Tiny Pretty Things. Maria is also a street photographer whose photographs have been featured in photo publications and in the Contact Photography Festival.