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Performer Bios

Paul Bates (A Night of Improv)

A veteran of Toronto comedy stages, Paul got his start at The Second City, where he wrote and performed in six revues. Other stage credits include It’s a Wonderful Toronto, The Soaps: The Live Improvised Soap Opera!, An Inconvenient Musical and SARSical, for which he received a Dora Award nomination. On television Paul played Jeff on Dan for Mayor (CTV) and has also appeared in Against the Wall, Puppets Who Kill, Second City’s Next Comedy Legend and The Jane Show. Film credits include The Tuxedo, Welcome to Mooseport and Camille. As a writer, Paul has worked for TheHour with George Stroumboulopoulos and InSecurity, and has written specials for William Shatner and Martin Short. Paul is one half of the popular musical comedy duo The Williamson Playboys, and one third of the improvised science fiction comedy podcast ILLUSIONOID.

Christy Bruce (A Night of Improv)

Christy Bruce began her career improvising at The Loose Moose Theatre in Calgary, where she studied with Keith Johnstone and Denis Cahill for over 10 years. In 2000, she moved to Toronto and began working at The Second City. She has been performing with them for over 11 years now, doing shows across the country and as far away as Bosnia and Monaco. Recent TV credits: The Day the Old Man Knocked, Long Story Short: CBC’s 75th Anniversary, Little Mosque on the Prairie and CTV’s Stay With Me. Recent theatre credits include Mimi in the award-winning show Blind Date (Calgary and Vancouver), Lucinda in Bruce Horak’s This Is Cancer (Halifax) and The Soaps! A Live Improvised Soap Opera, which just finished a second year of sellout performances at the Toronto Fringe Festival. She was the understudy for Kim Cattrall and Anna Madeley in the Broadway production of Private Lives.

Itai Erdal (How to Disappear Completely)

Stratford: Lighting designer of Taking Shakespeare, The Thrill, Titus Andronicus, The Best Brothers, Hirsch, Elektra. Elsewhere: Lighting designer of She Stoops to Conquer, Intimate Apparel, Billy Bishop Goes to War (Arts Club); Where the Blood Mixes, A Christmas Carol, Vincent in Brixton (Vancouver Playhouse); The Idiot, Crime and Punishment, My Name is Rachel Corrie (Neworld Theatre); Sweeney Todd (Citadel); Troilus and Cressida, The Winter’s Tale (Bard on the Beach); 16 Up, Dirty Kissing, Time for the Good Looking Boy (Box Clever, London); The Empty Orchestra, Broiler, YUFO, Dress Me Up With Your Love (Theatre Replacement); It’s a Wonderful Life, Alice in Wonderland, The Hobbit, The Secret World of Og, Seussical (Carousel Theatre); The League of Nathans, Killing Caesar (Touchstone); Wuthering Heights (Tamasha, London). Awards: Jessie Awards for Most Promising Newcomer, Life Savers (Ruby Slippers) and Jesus Hopped the A Train (Glass City Theatre); Dora Award and Best Design in the Dublin Fringe for The Four Horsemen Project (Volcano); Victoria’s Critics’ Choice Spotlight Award for The Life Inside (Belfry); ADC’s Jack King Award. Online: www.itaierdal.com, www.theelbow.ca. Et cetera: Itai’s solo performance of How to Disappear Completely (Chop Theatre) has been produced in Vancouver, Toronto, Seattle and Victoria, and was nominated for a Jessie Award and a Dora Award for best touring production. It can be seen this August at the SummerWorks Festival in Toronto. Itai is the artistic director of The Elbow Theatre in Vancouver and a member of Associated Designers of Canada.

Chris Gibbs (Stand Off)

British-born Chris Gibbs has been a professional comedian since 1991, when he began performing comedy shows on the street in London’s Covent Garden. For the next 11 years he toured full-time, performing at comedy, theatre and street festivals throughout Europe, as well as in New Zealand, Australia and Canada. Since moving to Canada in 2002 he has become best known for the award-winning, critically acclaimed one-man comedy shows with which he regularly tours. He’s been described as “One of the funniest guys around” by the National Post. The Toronto Star has called his shows “darkly gleeful” and “comic stand-up gold,” and the CBC has described his delivery as “a combination of dry wit and barely controlled madness that threatens to go off the rails at any time.” He’s played at fringe festivals across Canada, winning numerous Best of Fringe awards, and has also appeared at the Just for Laughs Festival in Montreal and the CBC Winnipeg Comedy Festival. His television work includes the 2010 and 2011 CBC Winnipeg Comedy Festivals and regular appearances on the ABC Comedy series Howie Do It and as a panellist on George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight.

Sharron Matthews (Stand Off)

Solo Performer and Cabaret Artist: In anticipation of her hit 2012 cabaret tour Sharron Matthews Superstar: GOLD, Sharron was named Woman of the Year 2012 by the New Current, the largest online student magazine in the U.K. GOLD travelled from Toronto to Scotland, London to New York City and then on to Cape Town, South Africa, for their inaugural cabaret festival, and Sharron sold out houses and received rave reviews on her biggest tour ever. Sharron took the 2011 Edinburgh Fringe Festival by storm, garnering amazing reviews for her one-woman show Jesus Thinks I’m Funny, which was named one of the Best of the Fest by the Scotsman newspaper, out of 2800 shows. Following the Edfringe, Sharron toured the show to London’s Leicester Square Theatre to sold-out audiences. Her New York cabaret debut, Sharron Matthews Superstar: World Domination Tour 2010, was named #1 Cabaret in New York City in 2010 by Andrew Martin of NiteLifeExchange and WPAT Radio. In 2009, Sharron was named Best Cabaret Performer by Toronto’s NOW Magazine. TV and Film: For two seasons, Sharron has been one of the stars of Global’s hit TV show Canada Sings, which was nominated in 2012 for a prestigious Reel Screen Award and in 2013 for two Canadian Screen Awards. Sharron was named Queen of the Mash-Ups for Canada Sings by the Toronto Star’s Debra Yeo. In 2011 she played Daphne of VisionTV’s She’s the Mayor. In the hit movie Mean Girls, she played Joan the Secretary alongside Tina Fey. Sharron was also featured in the films Cinderella Man, Take the Lead, The Music Man for Disney and Hairspray: The Movie. Stage Actress: Sharron played Madame Thénardier in Les Misérables on a North American tour with Colm Wilkinson, Lottie in the original cast of the Harold Prince revival of Show Boat, Babette in Beauty and the Beast at the Princess of Wales and the Narrator in two sold-out runs of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. She played the Wicked Witch of the West in the acclaimed Young People’s Theatre production of The Wizard of Oz, for which she was nominated for a Dora Award the same year she had the honour of hosting the Dora Awards (Toronto’s theatre awards) at the Winter Garden Theatre. In 2011, she returned to YPT to play Maisie in Seussical to critical acclaim. Recording Artist: Sharron is featured on the soundtrack for Harold Prince’s Show Boat, Disney’s The Music Man and her own CD, Party Girl. Writer: Sharron has written articles that have appeared in publications around the globe. Recently, Sharron has written for the National Post, Now magazine, The Scotsman and The List magazine. Her blog was named “brutally honest and funny” by CTV’s Glenn Sumi.

Ted McGee (Dear Mary, Dear Elizabeth)

Ted McGee is an adjunct professor in the English Department of the University of Waterloo. He regularly taught courses on literature and rebellion, literary criticism, Shakespeare’s plays and editing literary texts. The last of these courses developed from his ongoing research as an editor of Records of Early English Drama volumes, a contributor to the Oxford University Press Complete Works of Thomas Middleton and a member of the team working on the edition of the New Variorum Shakespeare: Othello. He was honoured with a Distinguished Teacher Award from the University of Waterloo in 2011. A member of the Board of Governors of the Stratford Festival from 1992 to 1999, he has continued to serve on its Education and Archives Committee. Besides published articles on Stratford productions that set Shakespeare’s stories in Canada and on the portrayal of love at first sight on Stratford’s stages, he is currently doing research in the Festival Archives on the significance of Juliet’s costumes and on the controversies occasioned by Stratford productions of The Merchant of Venice.

Seana McKenna (Dear Mary, Dear Elizabeth)

22nd season: Elizabeth in Mary Stuart and Madame Arcati in Blithe Spirit. Stratford: Shakespeare: title role in Richard III, Juliet, Viola, Olivia, Portia, Jessica; Queens Margaret, Katharine, Elizabeth; Chorus, Lady Macbeth, Titania, Helena, Paulina and the spaghetti-Western Shrew. The Matchmaker, Elektra, Dangerous Liaisons, Medea, Phèdre, Trojan Women, The Glass Menagerie, Orpheus Descending, Night of the Iguana, Private Lives, Fallen Angels, Present Laughter, Noises Off, London Assurance, Good Mother. Recently: Shakespeare’s Will at the Merrimack Theatre, Massachusetts, and the Wharton Centre, Michigan. Teaches at ACT, San Francisco, and at Stratford’s Birmingham Conservatory. Elsewhere: More than 80 productions across the continent. Awards: Three Dora Awards: Saint Joan (Theatre Plus Toronto), Orpheus Descending (MTC/Mirvish), directing Valley Song (New Globe); Jessie for Wit (Vancouver Playhouse/Canadian Stage); Genie for The Hanging Garden; Honorary MFA, American Conservatory Theatre. Thrilled to be working at the Festival, along with son Cal and husband Miles.

Colin Mochrie (A Night of Improv)

Colin Mochrie is an alumnus of Toronto’s famous Second City comedy troupe. After nine years as a regular on the British improvisation series Whose Line Is It Anyway?, he became a regular on the American version hosted by Drew Carey, which ran six years. Colin was a cast member of CBC’s This Hour Has 22 Minutes and with his wife, Debra McGrath, he produced, wrote and starred in the CBC show Getting Along Famously. Currently he is part of a very successful tour with Whose Line castmate Brad Sherwood, performing a live improv show across North America.

Joanne O'Sullivan (Stand Off, The Playwrights Crucible, A Night of Improv)

Joanne is proud to be able to say she’s worked in practically every genre of Canadian comedy. As a television writer she most recently spent two years writing for CBC’s popular and long-running news parody show This Hour Has 22 Minutes. Joanne also wrote on the tween comedy Overruled and on three seasons of Magee TV’s Smart Woman Survival Guide. Joanne has worked in the live Canadian comedy scene for over 10 years, performing stand-up from Vancouver to Toronto, including Niagara’s prestigious Fallsview Casino, the Stratford Festival’s Late Night with Lucy and improvising in four seasons of Sin City, Toronto’s popular live, improvised soap opera. Along the way she created some of Toronto’s most memorable live comedy shows, including Stand Off, the competitive stand-up show, and The Playwrights Crucible, where a new play is created right before your eyes. As a comic, Joanne’s television credits include Elvira Kurt’s Adventures in Comedy; Modern Manners, for which she hosted an episode on the etiquette of comedy; and TSN’s sport debate show Off the Record, where a single guest appearance turned into eight more. Her second one-woman play, Any Second Now, was nominated for a Canadian Comedy Award. Joanne is excited and honoured to be a part of the Stratford Festival’s inaugural season of The Forum.

Teresa Pavlinek (A Night of Improv)

Teresa is a writer, actor and producer. She began her career as a member of The Second City Toronto, during which time she wrote and performed three Dora Award-nominated shows. Her first two plays, Dumplings and Death and Hot August Night, have been produced in Toronto and New York. She was a member of the Tarragon Theatre Playwrights Unit, where she wrote her first full-length play, Made You Look. She co-wrote and starred in her own half-hour TV special, As I Was Saying, for the Comedy Network. Teresa was nominated for a Canadian Comedy Award for Best Female Improviser. Her TV and film credits include five seasons of the Gemini-nominated History Channel series History Bites, More Tears, Sue Thomas F.B.Eye, The Seán Cullen Show, Bless the Child, The Listener, Overruled and My Babysitter’s a Vampire. She is also a regular guest on TheRick Mercer Report. Teresa wrote, produced and starred in her own TV series, The Jane Show, for Global TV and the W Network. She was nominated for a Writer’s Guild Award for an episode she wrote, as well as a Gemini Award for her performance. She is also a member of the critically acclaimed sketch comedy group Women Fully Clothed, currently touring Canada and the U.S.

Lucy Peacock(Dear Mary, Dear Elizabeth; Late Night with Lucy)

26th season: Mary Stuart in Mary Stuart, Elora in The Thrill and Creative Director and Host of Late Night with Lucy. Stratford: Recent highlights include last season’s sold-out cabaret series Late Night with Lucy. Also Nana/For the Pleasure…, Masha/Three Sisters, Lady Macbeth/Macbeth, The Duchess of Malfi, Hello, Dolly!, The Blonde, the Brunette and the Vengeful Redhead. Elsewhere: Lucy recently had the extraordinary experience of playing Queen Lear at the University of Northern Colorado, where she was also teaching. This fall she will be at TIFT in Barrie. In November she will be co-presenting “Shakespeare’s Leading Women...” at the Global Conference of the International Leadership Association at McGill University. In February 2014 she will play Arkadina in The Seagull at the Segal Centre in Montreal. Et cetera: Author of Limericks by Lucy Peacock as the Duchess of Malfi, Written as She Lay Dead on the Stage.

Geraint Wyn Davies (Wordplay)

10th season: Duke Vincentio in Measure for Measure and Earl of Leicester in Mary Stuart. Stratford (selected): Cymbeline, Malachi Stack, King Arthur, Falstaff, Stephano, Dylan Thomas, Julius Caesar, King Duncan, Bottom, Polonius, King Ferdinand, Henry Higgins, Henry V, Bassanio, Tom Fashion, D’Artagnan, Richmond, Edward IV, Hortensio, Antipholus of Syracuse, Pericles. Elsewhere: New York: King Lear (Lincoln Center), Poetic License (The Directors Co.), Do Not Go Gentle (Clurman Theatre), Women Beware Women (Red Bull Theater). Canadian Stage’s The Elephant Man; Shaw Festival, five seasons; Richard III, Cyrano (Shakespeare Theatre Company, Washington, D.C.); Love’s Labour’s Lost (RSC); Hamlet, Henry VIII (Chichester Festival); An Enemy of the People (Lyric Hammersmith, London); two seasons as Theatr Clwyd’s artistic associate (Welsh National Company). Film/TV (selected): ReGenesis, Murdoch Mysteries, 24, Slings and Arrows, Black Harbour, Airwolf, Forever Knight, American Psycho II, Hypercube, One of the Hollywood Ten, Conspiracy of Fear.

Support for the inaugural season of
The Forum is generously provided by
Kelly and Michael Meighen

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