Makers

For PeerLess Productions: Performer – Rare, Down Syndrome by the Dozen, Performer/Creator – We’re all in Jeopardy.
Nathan began his acting career at the age of 4 during a school play when he adlibbed a walk on role into a one liner. Nathan has had parts in, ‘It’s About Time’, Talking Myself, Stone Soup Revisited, Newton and Alice and other H’Art musicals. Nathan is also involved in ‘Limestone Players Travelling Theatre Troupe’. Nathan is also an avid Special Olympic Athlete, winning the ‘Athlete’ of the year award in 2012. His favourite sports are swimming, skating, basketball, and cheerleading. When he isn’t acting or playing sports, Nathan sends out e-mails to friend and family, writes stories, and watches ‘The Next Step’, to learn new dance moves.

For PeerLess Productions: Performer – Rare, Down Syndrome by the Dozen, Performer/Creator We’re All in Jeopardy.
Ashaya began taking drama in high school and loved it! She has loved movies since she was a little girl, in fact learning and modelling lines from the shows she watched. Doing so, she learned to memorize things as she could recite scenes from the movies. Ashaya loves music, movies, dancing, basketball and swimming She is a lovable kind young lady. With a heart of gold.

For PeerLess Productions: Performer – Rare, Down Syndrome by the Dozen, Performer/Creator – We’re All in Jeopardy.
Erin Is a 26 year old actor who has been involved in a number of productions with the Limestone Travelling Theatre Troupe. In 2010 she debuted as a stepsister in a production of Cinderella. Since then she has played the role of the mother in Jack and the Beanstalk and Rapunzel . She played the page in Rumplestiltskin and Benvolio in Romeo and Juliet. Erin is a busy young lady and takes great pride volunteering at the hospitals in Kingston when she is not on the ice training as a competitive Figure Skater. In her spare time Erin enjoys listening to music, watching movies and travelling the world with her family.

For PeerLess Productions: Performer – Rare; Playwright/Performer – Down Syndrome by the Dozen, Creator/Performer – We’re all in Jeopardy.
Jacob’s love for movies earned him the ability of borrowed language. As a toddler, Jacob borrowed language from his movies to appropriately and quickly respond to questions or requests, at a time when his own language skills were not yet polished enough to formulate a sentence. Most often these “one liners” would carry the intonation and body language of the character from which it was borrowed. This very early talent has gone on to assist him to memorize large blocks of information. Jacob also enjoys, swimming, camping, hiking, skating, reading, writing songs and story lines, drawing characters, and being a responsible and loving Uncle.

Hayley is an actor and dancer from Coaldale, Alberta, and a graduate of Rosebud School of the Arts. Notable roles include Ariel in The Tempest at Citadel Theatre and multiple characters in The Little Prince at Theatre Passe Muraille.

Elizabeth is an actor who performed with National Theatre of the Deaf, Quest for Arts, Stratford Festival, Young People’s Theatre, Theatre Passe Muraille, National Arts Centre, Citadel Theatre, Concrete Theatre and more….

Sam Ferguson (he/him) is an award-winning sound designer/composer from Toronto. After moving to Vancouver to study under acclaimed electroacoustic music composer Berry Truax he returned to Toronto where he became involved with theatre. This experience led him to enroll in the Yale School of Drama where he received an MFA for sound design. Since graduating he has returned to Toronto and has been working in the industry ever since.

Cole Lewis (she/her) is a mom and mad theatre artist from St. Catharines, Ontario. She specializes in creating live performance from design ideas, exploring new modes of storytelling, and fusing technologies to the stage. Her practice includes directing, playwriting, and the design of moving image works. Twice nominated for Dora-Awards, Cole’s practice uses humour, design, and technology to explore notions of violence, expose questions of bias, and unsettle standard conceptions of ‘truth’ to explore alternative futures. She has an MFA in Directing from Yale and her thoughts on performance have been shared at LMDA, Howlround, FOLDA, Yale CCAM, and Canadian Theatre Review.

Patrick Blenkarn (he/him) is an artist working at the intersection of performance, game design, and visual art. His research-based practice revolves around the themes of language, labour, and democracy, with projects ranging in form from video games and card games to stage plays and books, with subjects as diverse as the labour of donkeys to the valuation of art to historical date farming practices in Iraq. He is a polyglot, programmer, animator, musician, and stage director. He is also the co-creator of asses.masses and co-founder of videocan, the national video archive of performance documentation.

Erin Ball (ze/they/she) is a white neurodivergent double below knee amputee. Erin is a circus artist based near Katarokwi/Kingston, Ontario and the artistic director of Kingston Circus Arts. Erin achieved Disability membership in 2014 and took a year off. Erin then began the process of un-learning ableism, internalized ableism and its many intersections, as well as re-learning circus arts and delving into the world of creative accessibility. Erin strives to (and created a course about) welcoming the Mad, Deaf, Neurodivergent, Chronically Ill, and Disability community into the realm of circus (and movement-based) arts as artists, audiences, etc. Erin travels internationally to perform, teach, and collaborate. Erin has been a movement-based artist for more than 15 years.

Andie Lloyd (she/he/they) is a queer interdisciplinary artist and community advocate, currently based on unceded Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Territories. She works as a lighting and video designer, a platform consultant and writer, primarily working with Isadora. Her recent projects include her Surtitle & Projection Design work with Neworld Theatre’s Clean/Espejos, an interactive and real-time operated lighting design for FakeKnot’s whip, and is thrilled to be joined by some of her favourite people for her FOLDA debut!
www.andielloyd.ca

Marcel Stewart is a father, artist, educator, and serves as Outreach Director for Suitcase in Point. Artistically, Marcel’s curiosity about history and lineage – within the context of colonialism – is at the basis of his work. Marcel was a member of the Soulpepper Academy and completed the Theatre Enhancement Program (Directing Foreman) through Factory Theatre. Marcel is a multi-time Dora nominated actor and has performed in numerous Dora Award-Winning productions. As a director, Marcel is drawn to stories written by and about Black people. Directing Credits: Toronto Pigeons (Factory Theatre Podcast); Serving Elizabeth (Thousand Islands Playhouse); Meet Chloe (Carousel Players). Currently, Marcel is developing a live digital series inspired by his father’s life in Jamaica. Marcel often returns to the questions: Who am I? How am I? How did I get here? Who have I lost? What is my purpose?

Michael Wheeler has served as the director of You Should Have Stayed Home in carbon and digital space. His most recent pre-pandemic directing credit was Behaviour at The Great Canadian Theatre Company. He is an Assistant Professor in The DAN School of Drama and Music at Queen’s University and Director of Artistic Research at SpiderWebShow Performance, Canada’s first live digital performance company. Michael was previously Executive Director and Transformation Designer of Generator, a mentoring, teaching, and innovation incubator in Toronto that empowers independent artists, producers and leaders. He has been a curator of live performance experiments with digital technology with FOLDA, The Theatre Centre, Harbourfront Centre, and Praxis Theatre.