Eugene Ma
Eugene Ma is a Drama Desk-nominated, (now also Toronto-) New York-and Hong Kong-based, Canadian acting teacher and interdisciplinary theater maker, who directs, acts, and composes across continents. He serves as Artistic Director of Deliberate Collision Performance, a new third culture theater company, and is Founding Director of Performance Atelier Toronto.
Select directing: WILD: a Family Musical Spectacle (Hong Kong City Chamber Orchestra; re-run, Rose Theatre, Kingston, U.K.); Request Programme (Hong Kong premiere), Yat-Sen, a New Musical (workshop production, Hong Kong Arts Festival); The Making of King Kong (Target Margin); Animus Anima//Anima Animus (Public /Brooklyn College); In The Blood (Columbia Grad Acting); The Baltimore Waltz (Oregon Shakespeare Festival - Daedalus).
As an AEA actor, Eugene’s more remembered performances include Christopher Bayes’ productions of A Servant of Two Masters (TFANA & Seattle Rep) and Accidental Death of an Anarchist (Yale Rep & Berkeley Rep); and at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, in Tony-winner Mary Zimmerman’s production of Guys and Dolls (also at The Wallis in LA) and Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land, directed by Chinese auteur Stan Lai.
As an acting teacher, Eugene had been an Artist-in-Residence at Hong Kong Baptist University; Assistant Professor (Adjunct) at Columbia University’s Graduate Acting Program, Visiting Assistant Professor at Yale School of Drama (now the David Geffen School), as well as Lecturer at SUNY Purchase and Harvard University (TDM). He also regularly coaches working screen actors on projects at the Dome Studio in Beijing. Eugene is also currently an MFA Candidate at Goddard College in their low-residency, praxis-forward Interdisciplinary Arts program researching liberatory acting training as he reexamines his practices and imagines a new curricular structure fit for today, and lectures at Toronto Metropolitan University.
Cole Lewis
Cole Lewis (she/her) is a theatre artist, educator, and Mom. 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. She has an MFA in Directing from Yale School of Drama, is the Co-Artistic Director of Guilty by Association, and the current Director of the Acting Program.
Cole teaches acting, directing, and new creation. She believes it is a big responsibility to set the aesthetic standard for the life of a young artist and provide the profession with dynamic and original leaders in the field. It is a responsibility she doesn’t take lightly. She empowers her students to reach their full capacity as smart, thinking, citizen-artists. Artists who are keen and empathetic observers of the world. Artists who are deeply curious about all aspects of human nature. Artists who are free from fear. Artists who make and/or perform work that is necessary today. Cole’s students have performed or directed at: Shaw Festival, Arts Club, Theatre Calgary, Alberta Theatre Projects, Banff Theatre, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, PuSH Festival, Theatre Centre, Crow’s Theatre. Her students can also be seen performing on Apple TV, The CW, Global TV, CBC Gem, Hallmark, and Lionsgate.
Twice-nominated for Dora Awards, Cole’s artistic practice uses humour, design, and technology, to explore notions of violence, expose questions of bias, and unsettle standard conceptions of ‘truth’. Select credits: Writing/Directing/Performing the Dora-nominated moving image performance of 1991 for Why Not Theatre’s RISER Projects. Adapting Kyo Maclear’s Virginia Wolf for Geordie Theatre. Co-writing/originating the Direction of the Dora-nominated Keith Richards: The One Woman Show. Directing Canada’s largest wearable art show, STRUTT. Devising/Directing Redshift Music Society’s immersive experience Still Life Continuum at Vancouver’s Orpheum Theatre. Upcoming: Seed commissioned by Stratford to write Untitled Nurse Project. Disparate, divergent, and wide-ranging, Cole’s works question received ideas about identity, violence, and systems of oppression to explore alternative futures.
Director of Acting Program, Associate Professor, Toronto Metropolitan University
Education:
MFA Directing, Yale School of Drama
MA Popular Culture, Brock University
BA Theatre Studies, Brock University
Johnny Wu
Johnny Wu is a bilingual Taiwanese-Canadian interdisciplinary, international performer and creator. As a graduate from Simon Fraser University with a double major in Theatre performance and Criminology, his work seeks to investigate humanity through exploring social justice via storytelling. Johnny believes that storytelling, on stage or screen, is a craft rooted in compassion — inviting participants to submerge themselves into the circumstance and experience the joys and traumas first hand to understand diverse lived experiences from an empathetic mind, critical to the catalyzing of social change. Understanding is the key to change, and storytelling is the hand that turns the key.
Johnny has trained nationally and internationally with mentors from schools such as Yale, Columbia, NYU, Carnegie Mellon, York University, and National Theatre School, as well as many other independent studios. His theatre credits include The Pink Line: Pain Held Tight presented at the Queer Arts Festival, These Violent Delights presented at the Summerworks Performance Festival, Movement consulting for Animus Anima//Anima Animus presented at The Public Theatre in New York City, Creative consulting for Portrait of my DNA presented at the PuSh Festival. His film and TV credits include Bunny Man placed first in the 10-minute short category and voted as Fan-Choice for best Overall Short at the Mighty Asian Filmmaking Marathon hosted by Vancouver Asian Film Festival. The film screened at 13 international festivals, including the Asian American International Film Festival, Diversion International Shot Film Festival, Cinequest Film & Creativity Festival, CAAM Fest. He can also be seen in CW’s Legends of Tomorrow and Kung Fu.
Lisa Cox
Assistant Professor, Acting
Education
BFA, Major Interdisciplinary Studies, Minor Business
M. Sc. Education
A graduate of Concordia University's Interdisciplinary Studies program, Lisa Karen Cox relishes work that combines music, movement and heightened language. Often playing men and other mythical creatures, theatre credits include: The Penelopiad (Royal Shakespeare Co/NAC); Friar Laurence in Romeo & (her) Juliet and Manfred Karge’s Man to Man (Headstrong Collective); Horatio in Hamlet (Beyond the Cubical Productions); Brutus in Julius Caesar (Spur-of-the-Moment Shakespeare), Katherine in Das Ding (CanadianStage/Theatre SMASH), Flo in Now You See Her (Quote Unquote Collective/Why Not/Nightwood) and 2 seasons at the Stratford Festival of Canada. Lisa was also the choreographer for Nightwood Theatre's Bear with Me and Comedy of Errors, the Assistant Director for We Are Proud to Present a Presentation about the Herero of Namibia...(Theatre Centre), and Salt-Water Moon (Factory Theatre), and the Associate Director for Why Not Theatre's Like Mother, Like Daughter. She has also worked with emerging playwrights through Playwriting Units and Festivals; and explored playwriting and dramaturgy during the creation of Now You See Her (Quote/Unquote Collective/WhyNotTheatre/Nightwood).
Raoul Wilke
Raoul Wilke, a multifaceted Dora Award winning artist, is the co-founder of The Moon Runners dance crew and the CEO of FeedYourSole. His choreographic work extends into film and theatre, artistic directing and coaching for artists such as Dillion Anthony’s “Love That We Found, Tyra Jutai’s “New Shoes” and Abhithi’s cover of “7 Rings“.
Under the artistic direction of Gadfly Dance Company, he got to perform for major brands such as Canada Goose, Azzaro Fragrance as well as grant commissioned works, at the Four Seasons, The Sony Center and many other Canadian based venues. As a black emerging artist, he’s accolades within these different communities opened doors for new collaborations.
He was a model for Seika Boye’s “ This Living Dancer” in collaboration with the AGO ( Art Gallery Of Ontario). He performed for The Raptors half time shows, as well got to produce his own film over the summer of 2019, commissioned by Canadian Stage Theatre. As a leader of street dance within Canada, he has mentored companies and dance schools over the years, on the importance of dance education and the value of themselves. He has represented Canada internationally battling at world renowned competitions, with his biggest accomplishment to date, representing Team Canada In China, for KOD.
Raoul is currently Faculty at Ryerson Dance School, educating students on these vernacular dance forms that helped shape him in to the man he is today. As a student of dance, he continues to live by the quote, “ See the music, Hear the Dance” by Balanchine.
Budi Miller
Budi Miller is Senior Lecturer, Head of Acting in the Faculty of Fine Arts and Music at the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne, Australia. He is Co-Artistic Director of The Theatre of Others.
He is an associate teacher of Fitzmaurice Voicework, a certified integrative studies practitioner, and an UNESCO designated master teacher of mask work. He teaches acting through an amalgamation of Balinese performance traditions with Mask Work, Fitzmaurice Voicework, Michael Chekhov, Clown, Viewpoints, Grotowski and Earl Gister’s techniques.
He holds a B.F.A. in theatre from NYU Tisch School of the Arts. He is pursuing a practice as research PhD at the University of Melbourne. He has been an actor-director-writer-teacher in the United States, Australia, Singapore, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Taipei, Malaysia, India, and Indonesia since 1992. He is a Balinese mask dancer and the first teacher to bring Fitzmaurice Voicework to Denmark, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taipei, Malaysia, China and Indonesia.
He coached Michelle Williams for her Academy Award nominated performance in Ang Lee’s movie Brokeback Mountain. He coaches and collaborates with Julian Elijah Martinez (Wu-Tang: An American Saga: Hulu). He has had the privilege of coaching and inspiring actors in many mediums: Broadway, HBO, Netflix, Showtime, major international film markets and theatres around the world.
He has been on the faculties of The Chautauqua Theater Company from 2004-2018, LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore 2009-2017. He has taught at Yale School of Drama, The Juilliard School, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, The Actors Center, Wayne State (MFA), The New School (MFA), SUNY Purchase College, University of Southern California, The Bill Esper Studio, Rutgers Mason Gross School of the Arts, The National Theatre Institute, Howard University, Western Michigan University, The National University of Singapore, The Queensland Theatre Company (Brisbane), Curtin University (Perth), and the Michael Chekhov Conference 2002.
He was the Executive Director of the International Antonin Artaud Fringe Theatre Festival 2008. He was a featured presenter at the International VASTA conference in Mexico City 2010 and London 2014. He was the conference director for the first VASTA conference in Asia (Singapore) 2017.
Published: The Lion and the Breath: Combining Kalaripayattu and Fitzmaurice Voicework Techniques Towards a New Cross-Cultural Methodology for Actor Training (Journal of Embodied Research).
Christopher Bayes
Christopher Bayes began his theater career with the internationally acclaimed Theatre de la Jeune Lune where he worked for five years as an actor, director, composer, designer and artistic associate. In 1989 he joined the acting company of the Guthrie Theater where he appeared in over twenty productions. His roles included Caliban inThe Tempest, Edgar in King Lear, The Herald in Marat/Sade and Harlequin in Triumph of Love. In 1993, commissioned by the Guthrie Theater, he produced his one-man show This Ridiculous Dreaming based on Heinrich Boll’s novel The Clown.
In New York, he has directed The Servant of Two Masters at Theatre For A New Audience, Red Noses by Peter Barnes,Four by Feydeau, The Bourgeois Gentleman, The Moliere One Acts, and The Love of Three Oranges by Carlo Gozzi at the Juilliard School; The Imaginary Invalid by Moliere, The New Place by Carlo Goldoni, We Won’t Pay...by Dario Fo, and his new adaptation of Moliere’s The Reluctant Doctor of Love for New York University’s Graduate Acting Program; The Raven by Carlo Gozzi at NYU’s Experimental Theater Wing; Ubu Roi at both NYU’s Experimental Theater Wing and Fordham University; and Timeslips at HERE.
Additionally, he has staged several original works including Wreckage at P.S. 122, The Big Day (a clown show)and The Fiasco Bro. Circus at the Juilliard School, Zibaldoné at HERE and the Present Company Theatorium,The Fools/Los Locos Del Pueblo at Touchstone Theater, Necromance, A Night of Conjuration at Dixon Place,Clowns. at the New York International Clown Festival and The Public Theater and Even Maybe Tammy at The Flea.
Outside of New York, his directing credits include Servant of Two Masters (Yale Rep, Shakespeare Theater, Guthrie Theater, Arts-Emerson and Seattle Rep), Doctor In Spite of Himself ( Intiman Theater, Yale Rep, Berkeley Rep), Accidental Death of an Anarchist (Yale Rep, Berkeley Rep), co-production of Scapin at the Intiman Theater in Seattle and Court Theater in Chicago, Comedy of Errors at the Idaho Shakespeare Festival, Len Jenkin’s new adaptation of The Birds at Yale Repertory Theater, Endgame at Court Theater, The Moliere Impromptu at Trinity Repertory Theater.
He was part of the creative team for the Broadway and Touring productions of THE 39 STEPS for which he created additional movement and served as Movement Director. He also created the Movement/Choreography for John Guare's Three Kinds of Exile at The Atlantic Theater.
He has received numerous awards and grants including a Jerome Foundation Travel/Study Grant, a General Mills Foundation Artist Assistance Grant, and both a Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship Grant and a Career Opportunity Grant. He is a 1999/2000 Fox Fellow.
He has taught classes and workshops internationally at Cirque Du Soliel, Williamstown Theatre Festival, , the Big Apple Circus, Interlochen Arts Center, Vassar College, Stella Adler Conservatory, Bard College, Fordham University, University of Texas Graduate Acting and Directing Programs, National Shakespeare Conservatory, University of Minnesota Graduate Acting Program, the Guthrie Theater, Iowa State University and Theater de la Jeune Lune.
He has served on the faculty of the Juilliard Drama School, the Actor's Center (founding faculty & master teacher of physical comedy/clown), Yale School of Drama, the Public Theater’s Shakespeare Lab, the Academy of Classical Acting at the Shakespeare Theater in Washington D.C., New York University's Graduate Acting Program and Tisch School of the Arts. His most recent position was that of Clinical Professor of Theater, Speech and Dance at Brown University and Director of Movement and Physical Theater at the Brown/Trinity Consortium. He is currently Professor and Head of Physical Acting at the Yale School of Drama.
Carlos García Estévez
Carlos García Estévez is an international artist born in Spain. He is Artistic Director of Manifesto Poetico, an actor, stage director, theatre researcher, pedagogue and specialist in Contemporary Commedia dell’Arte and mask performance.
Manifesto Poetico comes from Carlos’ 25 years of research and productions done internationally. He has also performed and directed in over 20 different countries and over 45 different Universities. Over his career he has developed his research into multi-style mis-en-scene, inter- disciplinary productions and devised theatre that is contemporary. The success of his work and the enthusiastic response from the audience comes from a reinvention of traditional- popular theatre. As he learned from Dario Fo, Carlos keeps the spirit of popular theatre in order to create new contemporary theatrical languages that speak to audiences today.
He directs shows, workshops, TransPoetico Productions and research projects in Europe, North, South and Central America, Africa and Asia. Recent creations directed by Carlos include Nama Kamu Atas Perahu (Kuala Lumpur, 2013), Tito’s Dream (USA, 2014), Bogota In Action (Bogota, 2015), New York Lands (New York, 2016), Klassiek van de Toekomst (Haarlem, NL, 2017), Hann: Voices of a Bay (Dakar, Senegal 2018), Pulse (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 2018), The Gate of Hope (Guadalajara, Mexico 2019), BELFAST 1919 (Belfast, NI 2019), In The Name Of Humanity (Wiikwemkoong, Canada 2021) and If I Listened… (Wiikwemkoong, Canada 2022).
He is currently touring his solo performance Solo dell’Arte. It has been in Spain, France, The Netherlands, Argentina, Romania, Austria, Italy, Turkey, Germany, Cyprus, Greece, United Kingdom, United States and Canada.
Other artists with whom he worked include Donato Sartori, Yoshi Oida, Dario Fo, Simon McBurney, Peter Sellars, Marcello Magni, Gennadi Bogdanov, Pierre Byland, Eric de Bont, Kevin Crawford and Kaya Anderson (Roy Hart – Voice technique), Mario Gonzáles (Theatre de Soleil), José Luís Gómez (Teatro de La Abadía, Madrid), Tapa Sudana (Tribuana master and a former actor of Peter Brook’s company) and Miquel A. Barceló.
Carlos will be remounting the TransPoetico Production, In The Name Of Humanity, (Part Three of The Epic Borders Trilogy), in Manitoulin Island at The Debajemujig Creation Centre (June to August 2022).
Carlos performed with Simon McBurney – Complicite in A Dog’s Heart and The Magic Flute and with Peter Sellars in Girls of the Golden West.
He participates as a movement director for opera at DNO (Dutch National Opera Academy) and Hollands Diep Muziektheater.
He trained with Jacques Lecoq for three years, both at his École Internationale de Théâtre and at L.E.M. (Laboratoire d’Etude de Mouvement). He is regularly hosted as a teacher at L’École Jacques Lecoq in Paris in the Laboratory for the Study of Movement (L.E.M.) where he is an associate artist and co-contributor to the unique research undertaken there.
Carlos directs, performs and teaches in English, French, Italian and Spanish.
Walton Wilson
Walton Wilson served as Chair of the Acting Department and Head of Voice and Speech at the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale, where he remains Professor in the Practice of Acting. He was apprenticed to and designated as a voice teacher by Kristin Linklater, and was later trained and certified as an associate teacher by Catherine Fitzmaurice. He has also studied voice with Richard Armstrong, Andrea Haring, Meredith Monk, Patsy Rodenburg, David Smukler, Jean-Rene Toussaint, and members of the Roy Hart Theatre. He is the resident voice and speech advisor at Yale Repertory Theatre and leads company voice and text work for Double Edge Theatre. He has served as voice, text, and dialect coach for productions on Broadway, Off-Broadway and in regional theatre, including the world premieres of new plays and adaptations by David Adjmi, Jane Anderson, Christopher Bayes and Steven Epp, Eric Bogosian, Bill Camp and Robert Woodruff, Martha Clarke, David Henry Hwang, Len Jenkin, Moises Kaufman/Tectonic Theatre Project, Rosary O'Neil, Han Ong, Stacy Klein/Double Edge Theatre, Jiehae Park, David Rabe, Bill Rauch and Tracy Young, Jose Rivera, and Mary Zimmerman. He has held faculty appointments at NYU/Tisch School of the Arts, Fordham College at Lincoln Center, Emerson College, and Southern Methodist University, and has been an artist-in-residence at American Repertory Theatre, Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center/National Theatre Institute, and Swine Palace Theatre. His international teaching credits include classes and workshops for GEOKS Singapadu (Bali), LaSalle College of the Arts (Singapore), Shanghai Theatre Academy (China), SFUMATO Theatre Laboratory, National Drama Theatre of Plovdiv, and New Bulgarian University (Bulgaria), Fundacao Calouste Gulbenkian (Portugal) and TITAN Teaterskole (Norway). He has also led courses for community activists in New York and for prison inmates in Massachusetts and New Mexico. A proud member of Actor's Equity Association for over thirty years, his professional acting credits include productions Off-Broadway and in regional theatres and Shakespeare festivals across the country.
Julien Elijah Martinez
Julian Elijah Martinez is a New York based actor who holds a B.F.A from Elon University and a M.F.A from the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale. Raised in Howard County Maryland, Elijah has also performed on Broadway, Off-Broadway and regionally throughout the country. Elijah is a founding member of the Encompass Collective, on the board of the Developing Artist Theater Company and a freelancer photographer.
Mycah Hogan
Mycah Hogan is an educator and theater-maker who works with performers to help them discover their best, most authentic, and enthusiastic selves. He's studied and made work with a bunch of really dope humans, but particularly special magic-makers include Kevin Kuhlke (Acting & Directing), Mary Overlie (Six Viewpoints), Christopher Bayes (Clown & Commedia), Emmanuelle Delpech (Clown), Quinn Bauriedel (Improvisation), Anya Saffir (Practical Aesthetics), and Justine Wolf Williams (Play).
As an actor, Mycah has appeared on stage in New York (off-Broadway: Roundabout, the New Group), regionally (Williamstown Theater Fest), and locally in his home state of Rhode Island (The Wilbury Group, The Gamm Theater, Trinity Repertory). He has acted alongside talents like Sarah Paulson, John Cullum, Jeremy Strong, Andrew Garfield, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Roger Rees, Lily Rabe, Jason Butler Harner, and Lili Taylor, among others. He has been directed by Academy Award nominee Kathleen Turner, Adrienne Campbell-Holt, Daniel Talbott, and Tony nominee Scott Elliott.
Mycah is a Lecturer at Brown/Trinity Rep's MFA Program, where he teaches Clown, Physical Play, and Performance Pedagogies. He is a public school teacher, faculty member of NYU's International Workshop in Amsterdam, and is the Education Programs Manager for The Wilbury Theatre Group in Providence, RI, where he can be found on (most) Monday nights teaching his hit all-levels class EMBODIED ACTION: An Acting Class for Literally Everyone!
Paige Allerton
Paige Allerton is an international performing artist and anthropologist born in Canada.
She is Artistic Director of Manifesto Poetico and Editor of the Laboratory’s research. She directs the company’s department of Anthropology and Content Creation, and the project The Poetics of Survival.
She co-directed The Epic Borders Trilogy, a series of TransPoetico Productions, taking place in Mexico, Northern Ireland, and Canada. Together with Carlos García Estévez, she is in charge of the conception and direction of Manifesto Poetico’s Open Laboratories and pedagogic activity. She is a movement teacher and performs with masks internationally. She is currently touring her solo show “Good Boy” which premiered in Cyprus in June 2017.
She has toured with Manifesto Poetico in Asia, Africa, Europe, North and Central America for pedagogic, performance and research activities.
In 2020 she was co-author, together with Giller Prize winning author, Johanna Skibsrud, of the Johns Hopkins University Press publication, “Manifesto Poetico: Toward new theatrical languages”, as part of the ASAP Journal published by Johns Hopkins University Press. Together with Carlos García Estévez she has written two chapters for Routledge publications, “Mask Performance for a Contemporary Commedia dell’Arte” for The Routledge Companion to Commedia dell’Arte and “Auto-cours, Enquetes, Commandes. A theatre practitioner’s perspective'” for The Routledge Companion to Jacques Lecoq, after being invited based on their international experience as theatre practitioners.
She trained at the School of Jacques Lecoq, the Laboratory for the Study of Movement (LEM) in Paris, at the University of Toronto and with Manifesto Poetico. She is also currently associate artist at the Laboratory for the Study of Movement (LEM) at the school of Jacques Lecoq in Paris.
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