Herbie Barnes

Herbie Barnes is an accomplished playwright, performer, Director and arts educator who is 35 year career spans across in North America. Anishinaabe theatre artist from Aundeck Omni Kaning First Nations on Manitoulin Island, Herbie was among the generation of young Indigenous artist in the 90s breaking down barriers to for professional careers in Canadian theatre. Barnes was raised in Toronto. His theatre career began in the mid 80’s on Toronto’s Improv stages. Since then he has collaborated with some of North America’s largest theatre companies playing Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit, Elwood P Dowd in Harvey and Norval Morrisseau in Copper Thunderbird. Herbie has directed internationally with shows such as Oliver The Musical, The Play That Goes Wrong, Tales Of An Urban Indian, and It’s A Wonderful Life and was nominated for a John Hirsh Directors award. Herbie has writing a number of plays for both theatre for young audiences and mature theatre and is currently the Artistic Director at Young People’s Theatre.

Ken Hall

Ken Hall is a Dora Mavor Moore Award nominee, Canadian Comedy Award winner (Best Breakout Artist) and multiple CCA award nominee, including most recently, Comedic Artist of the Year.

Ken plays the lovable Herb and provides motion capture as the body of Pogo in Netflix's THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY and has appeared in numerous film and television roles including two seasons as, Jeff The Grey, on TBS’s hit series PEOPLE OF EARTH and has appeared as a guest on CONAN.

Ken is also one-half of the critically acclaimed, comedic clownprov duo, 2-MAN NO-SHOW, with his comedic soulmate, Isaac Kessler, and has had the pleasure to work for CIRQUE DU SOLEIL.

Ken teaches Public Speaking at The Second City - a course he created and developed, as well as Clownprov at Bad Dog Theatre. Ken co-created & co-instructs a 6 week course on creative play, aptly named, Brunch!, at Sweet Action Theatre as well as, SpeakEasy, a course that combines public speaking and play theory and teaches improv at The Social Capital Theatre and The Assembly. Ken was awarded the Frank McAnulty Award for Faculty Instructor of the Year 2019 at The Second City.

Rosa Laborde

Rosa Laborde is a critically acclaimed Chilean Canadian Playwright,
Screenwriter, Director, and Actor.

As a playwright she’s been produced across Canada at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, Tarragon Theatre, The Great Canadian Theatre Company, Neptune Theatre, Touchstone Firehall Theatre and The Belfry Theatre as well as performances at Playwright’s Horizons and the Arthur Seelen Theatre in New York City. She’s been a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama, been nominated twice for the Dora Mavor Moore Award for best new play and was the recipient of the KM Hunter Artist’s Award for Theatre. Currently she’s commissioned by the Factory Theatre, Tarragon Theatre, and The Stratford Festival of Canada.

Andi Schwartz

Andi Schwartz is a writer, editor, and acafemmeic. Her research interests include femme identities, cultures, and histories; digital and popular cultures; affect and “softness”; and intersectional approaches to the study of femininity. Her academic work has been published in Sexualities, Feminist Media Studies, Punk and Post Punk, Social Media and Society, and others. Her reporting, commentary, and essays on femme, feelings, friendship, feminism, and pop culture have been published in Xtra, Herizons, This Magazine, Shameless, Flare, Guts, and more. Andi is the creator of the podcast Still Brazen and the zine series Soft Femme. She is also the Coordinator of the Centre for Feminist Research at York University, co-founder of the Femme Story Archives, and the treasurer of the Sexuality Studies Association. Andi lives in Toronto with her dogs.

You can find out more about her work at andischwartzwrites.com