Tarragon is proud to have several multi-talented artists in residence.
Artists in Residence
Meet the artists
In residence

Kanika’s work has premiered at stages and screens large and small in Toronto and in the USA. Her critically acclaimed play, “our place,” is a recipient of a Dora Mavor Moore Award for “Outstanding New Play”, her opera “Of the Sea” with composer Ian Cusson premiered at Toronto’s historical Bluma Appel Theatre. Her children’s play “Truth” received a Dora Mavor Moore Award for “Outstanding New Play”. Other credits include celebrated digital opera work “Tak-Tak-Shoo” at Opera Philadelphia with composer Rene Orth, “Anansi and the Great Light” at Curtis Institute (Philadelphia) and “The Big Easy: Music of New Orleans” at Soulpepper.



Waawaate has had numerous residencies as playwright and choreographer, including Banff Centre for the Arts, Native Earth Performing Arts, Playwrights’ Theatre Centre, Playwrights Workshop Montreal and Magnus Theatre.
Other work: Waawaate coordinated Canada’s first ever 2SLGBTQ+ Council for an Indigenous governing body at Grand Council Treaty #3. Waawaate served for three seasons as a curator for Indigenous Programming at Kick & Push Festival in Kingston.
Most Recent: Waawaate choreographed BentBoy by Herbie Barnes at Young Peoples’ Theatre. Performed Omaagomaan in Munich, Germany & Peterborough, Ontario.


Monique’s artistic practice mines stories embedded in the body in connection to land and place. She has created land-based, embodied dramaturgies and taught Indigenous Theatre in theory, process and practice throughout Canada, the US, Latin America and Europe.
Most recent: the role of Wanda in My Sister’s Rage at Tarragon Theatre, Aunt Shady in The Unnatural and Accidental Women, at the NAC and Izzie M.: The Alchemy of Enfreakment written by Monique with a diverse creative team. Monique has collaborated with Santee Smith as the dramaturg for Kaha:wi Dance Theatre’s tryptic, Re-Quickening /Blood Tides/SKe:NEN and for Teneil Whiskeyjack’s Ayita for Edmonton’s SkirtsAfire Festival. She is a member of the newly formed Indigenous Dramaturgy Circle at Tarragon Theatre and she was the inaugural Wurlitzer Visiting Professor at the University of Victoria’s Theatre Department in 2023.

Keshia previously served as artistic producer for Paprika Theatre Festival (2021-2024), online content producer for ArtistProducerResource.com (2018-2021), Resident Dramaturge for Puente Theatre (2022), and Interim Program Director of Write from the Hip (2023-2024). You would have seen them last on stage as Anya in The Cherry Orchard (Modern Times Stage Company), and Wen’s Understudy in The Year of the Cello (Theatre Passe Muraille + Music Picnic). Productions they recently helped get onstage from offstage include dramaturging NewfoundLanded by Santiago Guzmán and Nabila Qureshi (TODOS Productions), WHITE MUSCLE DADDY by Raf Antonio (Buddies in Bad Times Theatre + Pencil Kit Productions), directing Radium Girls (York University), SEPH (RISERx Why Not Theatre + Toronto Metropolitan University), and as co-creator of Shadow Girls (Pencil Kit Productions + Blank Canvas) at the Gladstone Hotel. @keshiapalm // keshiapalm.com


His plays, The Herd, In Care, Café Daughter, Gordon Winter, Thunderstick, Bannock Republic, Suicide Notes and Three Little Birds have been produced across Canada. As a dramaturg, he has helped many playwrights at all levels develop their plays.
He lives in Edmonton with his partner, Dr. Melissa Stoops, with their cats, Augustus and Drusilla. He is a member of the George Gordon First Nation in the Treaty 4 territory.


Commissioned artists




PAMELA MALA SINHA is an award-winning Canadian actress and writer, working internationally in theatre, television, and film. Pamela is the recipient of Canada’s prestigious Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play (playwright) and Outstanding Lead Actress for her solo debut play,
CRASH. Published by Scirocco Drama, Crash was also included in a Bloomsbury UK’s Audition Speeches anthology, and Love, Loss and Longing (Playwright’s Canada Press). Her second play Happy Place premiered in Toronto at Soulpepper, followed by runs at Vancouver’s Touchstone
Theatre and Winnipeg’s Prairie Theatre Exchange. CRASH’s U.S debut was at the Signature Theatre, N.Y as part of Soulpepper’s tour in 2016. As one of few artists selected nationally to receive a prestigious Project Imagination commission (Soulpepper), Pamela began research for NEW which she
completed as Playwright-In-Residence at Necessary Angel Theatre. NEW had its World Premiere in November 2022 at Winnipeg’s Royal MTC followed by a Toronto run at Canadian Stage, co-produced by Necessary Angel. Pamela’s film adaptation of Happy Place was produced by Jennifer Kawaja (Sienna Films/Sphere), directed by Helen Shaver. Pamela completed development with CBC and Sienna Films on her series Nirvana and production wrapped last year on the filming of CRASH (produced by Necessary Angel and Riddle Films) starring Pamela. She is currently at work on an adaptation of NEW as a screenplay in addition to her new play, Rebel Royals.
