Nada Abusaleh is a performer, theatre-maker and arts worker. She has been performing professionally on stages since 2018 after graduating from the University of Waterloo with a minor in Theatre & Performance. Nada often works collaboratively on new devised projects, and has worked with Cosmic Fishing Theatre since 2018 on producing and creating experimental performances. She is currently the Apprentice Artistic Director of MT Space.

Alecks Ambayec is a Filipina actress and producer based in Toronto, Canada. Bringing significant film, TV, and stage experience from Manila, Philippines, she seeks opportunities to learn more about producing to establish herself in Toronto’s vibrant film landscape. Aside from acting and producing, she finds delight in scuba diving and film photography

Natasha “Courage” Bacchus is a multidisciplinary artist, theatre-maker, and visual performer, as well as a three-time Deafolympican gold medalist sprinter. My artistic practice explores collaboration through theatre, signed music, body movement, and film production. She has performed in solo, duo, and ensemble works across theatre, cabaret, and television, including the 2025 Juno Awards, 21 Black Futures (2021), Rebirth of Courage at YUKA (2024), and The Rocky Horror Show (2024/25) with The Disability Collective.

Kaitlin Blanchard (she/they) is an artsworker, performer, and playwright. As a recovering academic returning to her theatrical roots, she creates and produces in order to unravel the coloniality of theatrical form. Her creative work braids tradition and its outsides, ironizing and unsettling the histories and traditions that enliven whiteness. She creates and produces under the Creative Mafia banner. When she is not tarrying with her PhD dissertation, administrating, or playing in the studio, you can find her in Tkaronto’s dog parks with her more-than-human-kin, Quinn.

Nehal El-Hadi is a writer, researcher, and editor. Trained as an environmental journalist and urban planning scholar, Nehal’s work explores the relationships – with materials, technologies, objects and spaces/places – that define what it means to be human. She holds residencies at Tarragon Theatre and the Theatre Centre

Elyssia Giancola (she/her) is a queer theatre maker beginning her artist-producing journey. An actor and creator, her most recent credits include co-producing, co-creating, and performing in Madame Winifred’s Circus of Wonders, which won a Patron’s Pick Award at the Toronto Fringe Festival. Elyssia also performed an original piece for Soulpepper Theatre’s Queer Youth Cabaret. Additionally, Elyssia works as an arts administrator and stage manager for several theatre companies in Toronto.

Viktorija Kovac is a theatre director, dramaturg, artistic producer, and the founding artistic director of Cosmic Fishing Theatre - an experimental project-based theatre company based out of Waterloo, ON. Her artistic practice centres on new creation and directing re-imagined adaptations, that emphasize the female artistic voice, to serve intercultural and intergenerational audiences. To mark the 10-year anniversary, Cosmic Fishing Theatre became a professional presenter of a theatre and performance series for children (ages 0-8) in Waterloo Region, under the brand - DiSCoVeR.

Mac is a transgernder, interdisciplinary artist and performer working in theatre and dance. He is a playwright, burlesque/strip/nightlife performer, puppeteer and costume maker. He is the producer of the bi-monthly event Trans Strip Night, produces his own work, and is trying to curate more community engaged work like zines and events for trans people. Recent credits: The Garage 2025 (upcoming), Night of Dread and Summer Company Apprentice with Clay and Paper Theatre, and developing his newest play Giselle and The Dog. In his work, Mac is interested in exploring and documenting his own experiences as a trans man, the body, kink/fetish, and finding the absurd in everything.

Mina Shanmuaglingam (they/them) is a Tamil multidisciplinary artist, born and raised in Tkaronto with roots in Yazhpanam. Mina is best known for their burlesque persona, Optimal Tease.

Mina’s art reimagines stories from their conservative Hindu upbringing, highlighting perspectives that have been silenced by dominant narratives. As a producer, Mina aims to curate shows that bring underrepresented QTBIPOC perspectives to the forefront. You can keep up with Mina’s work on IG @optimaltease.

K is a community organizer and emerging producer, writer, performer based in Toronto’s west end. Equipped with a BFA in theatre production and a masters in public administration, they have lived many lives, taking them from grassroots to global scales. Now, K is making their return to performance art and storytelling, applying everything they’ve learned to produce new, challenging projects that help us cope with the poly-crises of our time, to connect, and imagine a better world.

seeley quest, a trans disabled environmentalist, arts and equity educator in Canada since 2017, presented in San Francisco’s Bay Area 2001-14, with Sins Invalid 2007-2015, Hir script in progress, “Modeling” has had readings online including with Montreal’s 2021 Wildside Festival and Vancouver’s 2022 rEvolver Festival, and onsite with Eastern Front Theatre’s 2023 Early Stages Festival. Sie’s organized over five dozen performing arts and film showcase events, and over three dozen arts ed workshop sessions. https://questletters.net

Lamesha Ruddock is a cultural producer, performance artist, and historian specialising in 20th-century Black British feminist history. Based between the UK and Canada, Lamesha has held roles with Hamilton (West End), the Royal Court Theatre, and as Co-Executive Director of Boundless Theatre. She has produced with Luminato Festival, Pleasance Theatre, Shadowland Theatre, Theatre Royal Stratford East and programmed at BAND Gallery and is currently an Access Support Worker for Arts Council England. A Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, Chair of Paprika Festival and V.P. Membership at Alumnae Theatre.

Lee Stone (they/them) is a director, producer, and educator. In 2022 Lee was awarded the Toronto Arts Council, Newcomer and Refugee Artist Mentorship Grant for the purpose of founding Dead Name Theatre, which uplifts and centres the voices, experiences and talents of trans, non-binary, and queer creatives in Toronto.

Learn more at leestone.weebly.com and deadnametheatre.weebly.com

Nuha Yousuf is a multidisciplinary artist with a background in free improvisation and new music, pursuing a Master of Music in Collaboration, Curation, and Creative Performance at Laurier. Highlights include performing her NUMUS 2025 winning curation, Of Mothers and Daughters, Assistant Directing Tapestry Opera’s Briefs, sound designing and performing live music for Before I Die (Mada Theatre, MT Space’s Works in Progress Festival), and partnering with Conservation Halton to create a site-specific multi-instrumental piece at Crawford Lake.