Theatre Passe Muraille

Location: 16 Ryerson Ave, Toronto, near Queen Street West and Bathurst.

Key Team Members: Regine Cadet (Managing Director); Andy McKim (Artistic Director); Jenn Sartor
(Producer); Petra Chevrier (Financial and IT Manager); Bridget Gilhooly (Associate Producer, Patron
Services); Chantel Watts (Associate Producer, Outreach); Lada Darewych (Associate Producer, Growth
and Development); Graham Isador (Associate Producer, Marketing and Publicity); Fatuma Adar
(Communications and Marketing Assistant); David Fisher (Mainspace Technician); Christopher Ross
(Backspace Technician); Augusto Bitter, Tamyka Bullen, Sunny Drake, Jordi Mand, David Mesiha, Tijiki
Morris (Playwrights in Residence); Donna-Michelle St. Bernard (Emcee in Residence)

Programming: 2018-2019 season – Sound of the Beast by Donna Michelle St. Bernard; Pearle Harbour’s
Chautauqua by Justin Miller; Will You Be My Friend by Janice Jo Lee; The Runner by Christopher Morris;
Hook Up by Chris Thornborrow and Julie Tepperman; Paolozzapedia by Adam Paolozza; CHICHO by
Augusto Bitter; Crying Hands: Deaf People in Hitler’s Germany by Theatre Manu (Norway); The Chemical
Valley Project by Kevin Matthew Wong; The Things I Carry by Lee Su-Feh.

Like the Blythe Festival, they focus on new, Canadian works.

“Since 1968, we’ve created over 600 new Canadian plays and built a rich legacy of groundbreaking
theatre.” https://www.passemuraille.ca/wp/about-us/

They also offer many accessible performances, from wheelchair accessibility to audio described
performances, ASL performances, and relaxed performances.

Hiring Practices: Theatre Passe Muraille champions diversity. Many of their resident playwrights will
perform in their own works.

Many of their performances are done in partnership between Theatre Passe Muraille and another
theatre company. The six resident companies are Broadleaf Theatre, lemonTree creations, Pandemic
Theatre, New Harlem Productions, Paprika Festival, and Litmus Theatre. Auditions are posted many
times on Broadway World (https://www.broadwayworld.com/toronto/regionalshows/Theatre-Passe-
Muraille#auditions), and on the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts website (https://tapa.ca/event-
crapshoot/).

www.passemuraille.ca
Catalyst Theatre (www.catalysttheatre.ca)

Location:
Edmonton, Alberta. It was founded in 1977, originally as a social action theatre.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalyst_Theatre

Key Team Members:

Artistic Director – Jonathan Christenson; Resident Designer – Bretta Gerecke; Associate Managing;
Director – Lana Michelle Hughes; Choreographer – Laura Krewski; Sound Designer – Wade Staples;
Music Producer – Matthew Skopyk; Stage Management – John Raymond

Programming:
The Invisible – Agents of Ungentlemanly Warfare – a story about female spies taking down the Nazi war
machine in WWII.
Onegin (on-YEG-in) – a new indie-rock musical adaptation of Pushkin’s poem and Tchaikovsky’s opera,
Eugene Onegin.
Fortune Falls - In the town of Fortune Falls, the sweet smell of chocolate fills the hearts of all who work
at the Mercey Chocolate Factory. But when the factory suddenly closes, an idealistic security guard is
left to uncover its hidden secretes. A synthpop musical.
Vigilante – A rock musical about family, forgiveness and frontier justice focusing on Johannah Donnelly
and her 6 sons.
Songs for Sinners and Saints – a special concert event including songs from Catalyst Theatre’s award-
winning repertoire.
The Soul Collector - The Soul Collector is a darkly whimsical and surreal musical tale about losing hope
and finding it again in a frozen northern metropolis…
Hunchback – A new musical take on Victor Hugo’s story of The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Nevermore – The Imaginary Life and Mysterious Death of Edgar Allen Poe - Bizarrely beautiful and
wonderfully witty, Nevermore uses haunting song, poetic storytelling and surreal imagery to explore the
events that shaped Poe’s career and ignited his lifelong battle with “visions dark and sinister.”
Frankenstein - Both ghoulishly funny and devastatingly tragic as it focuses on the fallibility of all the
characters – even those deemed as monstrous.
Carmen Angel - A crime-scene photographer is haunted by memories of his first love, a ten-year-old girl
found murdered during his childhood, and the sinister mortician whom she befriended before her
death.
The Blue Orphan - A darkly comic and deeply romantic musical fairy tale about the final moments in the
lives of the residents of Crooked Creek before it is destroyed by a terrible storm.
The House of Pootsie Plunket - Fierce, heart-rending, and wickedly funny, The House of Pootsie Plunket
takes the epic saga of the murderous House of Atreus and transforms it into a topsy-turvy fairytale for
grown-ups set in the Great White North.
Songs for Sinners - A playfully perverse, hauntingly beautiful musical inspired by the most deadly of sins,
Sloth, in which characters overcome by ennui have become so brittle with apathy they’re literally drying
up and crumbling to dust, just like the world they inhabit.
The Abundance Trilogy - A wildly comic, darkly phantasmagorical vision of Alberta, the province of
plenty. A carnival of mutants guides you through an hallucinogenic landscape – half Fellini and half
prairie gothic – that attests to the resilience of the little guy, even under duress.
Electra - A boldly theatrical and compellingly flamboyant update to the classic Greek myth of the blood-
soaked House of Atreus, who, in Catalyst’s tragi-comic story of murder and revenge, have a distinct aura
of Addams Family grotesque about them.
Elephant Wake - The astonishing and highly poignant story of Jean-Claude, the last remaining resident of
Ste. Vierge, who’s dreaming up a fantastical plan that will bring global recognition to the dying prairie
town he so loves.
My Perfect Heaven - The touching yet tough-minded story of Barefoot Boy, a small-town prairie dreamer
who escapes the brutality of his world by transforming himself into a beautiful bluebird who sings with
the voice of an angel.

Catalyst Theatre produces new, Canadian shows, mostly musicals based on their website. They do a lot
of shows based on pre-existing stories, although they do have new, cutting edge stories of their own.
They do not take script submissions as they are a creation company.
Although Catalyst Theatre is not the first to employ interactive theatre, “Catalyst appears to have been
the first professional theatre in English-speaking Canada to develop its own form of interactive theatre,
and to apply it to community issues. In Catalyst's work the interaction of audience and performers is
necessary to both the performance and the political function of the play.”
https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/TRIC/article/view/7416/8475

Hiring practices:
 Submit a current resume and headshot by email to Lana Hughes: lana@catalysttheatre.ca
indicating your interest in attending the auditions. No phone calls please.
 Please save your head shot and resumes as FirstName.LastName.
 Be clear if you are auditioning in Edmonton or Calgary.
 Please prepare one monologue (classical or contemporary) and one song (any style) – each
under two minutes.
 We will provide a pianist for accompaniment – please provide sheet music. While we strongly
encourage you to use the accompanist we provide, there will also be an MP3/CD player
available. –Please DO NOT plan to sing a cappella.
 Please wear clothes and footwear that you are comfortable moving in during the movement
call.
 Fluency in a second language is an asset. If this applies to you, please come prepared to share a
short piece (it need not be memorized) in any language(s) you speak in addition to English.
 The ability to play a musical instrument(s) at performance level is also an asset. If this applies to
you, please come prepared to play a small selection on one or two (maximum) instruments.
 Experience with new play development is an asset. Please highlight any such experience on your
resumé.
 Catalyst Theatre engages, under the terms of the Canadian Theatre Agreement, professional
artists who are members of the Canadian Actors Equity Association.

They are very supportive of LGBTQ people. Their casting call for The Invisible called for “female, female-
identifying or non-binary actors comfortable in femme attire.”
https://www.theatrealberta.com/2018/05/28/auditions-edmonton-calgary-catalyst-theatre/

Mission Vision Values:

Canada’s Catalyst Theatre creates bold, distinctive and highly theatrical productions – ‘Made-In-
Edmonton’ theatre that is presented across Canada and around the world. The company’s core creative
team strives for the unexpected, seeking out innovative ways to tell powerful stories through the
inventive and playful use of evocative music, haunting sound, poetic text, dynamic choreography and
stunning & surreal design.