Jessica B. Hill is an actress, playwright and teacher. Now entering her ninth season with the Stratford Festival, credits include Elinor Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility, Madame de Merteuil in Dangerous Liaisons, Phoebe in As You Like It, Viola in Twelfth Night, Helen in All's Well That Ends Well and Lady Anne in Richard III. Her two first plays, Pandora and The Dark Lady, both premiered in Winnipeg in 2023. Pandora wrapped a remount production at Here For Now Theatre this fall and The Dark Lady has been put on across five Canadian provinces, has had its American debut in 2025, and is slated to be part of the American Shakespeare Center's 2026 spring season. Jessica's work has spanned 19 years in theatre, voice, film, TV and video games in both English and French. For the last five years, she's been a visiting teacher at the National Theatre School where she teaches Chekhov. Instagram: @jessicabhill Paired with mentee Katie Welham
Joelle Peters is an Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) award-winning playwright and actor from Bkejwanong Territory, Walpole Island First Nation in Southwestern Ontario. A graduate of Seneca College's Acting for Camera and Voice Program, Joelle has appeared on Shoresy (Crave/Hulu), Web of Lies (Discovery+) and in the film In Her City (Raven West Films Ltd). Selected theatre performance credits: Women of the Fur Trade (Stratford), Dreary and Izzy (Theatre Northwest), The Election (Nightwood/Theatre Direct/Commonboots/Passe Muraille), Only Drunks and Children Tell The Truth (Western Canada Theatre/Thousand Islands Playhouse), Two Odysseys: Pimooteewin (Signal/Soundstreams). She is also the Artistic Director of Native Earth Performing Arts in Toronto. In 2020, Joelle was named the Siminovitch Prize Protegee for Playwriting by Laureate Tara Beagan. In 2025, Joelle’s play Niizh was shortlisted for the Indigenous Voices Awards (Published Poetry in English) prize. Niizh premiered at Native Earth Performing Arts in 2023 . Joelle’s other works include Frozen River (co-written by Carrie Costello and Michaela Washburn, winner of the 2021 Sharon Enkin Plays for Young People award) and Do You Remember? (commissioned by Burnt Thicket Theatre for the We Treaty People audio series, supported by Punctuate/Pemmican Playwrights Unit). Instagram: @joellepeters.jpg | Website: joellepeters.ca Paired with mentee Keely McPeek
Celebrated writer Jordi Mand is known for her impactful contributions to theatre, film and television. Mand’s globally acclaimed plays, including Between the Sheets, Caught, This Will Be Excellent, Brontë: The World Without, and a new stage adaptation of the literary classic Little Women, have been translated and published internationally. Mand has collaborated with many of Canada’s most prominent theatre companies, such as the Stratford Festival, the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, the Citadel Theatre, the Grand Theatre, Theatre Passe Muraille, Nightwood Theatre, the Harold Green Jewish Theatre Company, and many more. She was a writer for the hit CTV drama Cardinal and has participated in numerous development rooms for Canadian television shows. She is a graduate of the National Theatre School of Canada and the Canadian Film Centre’s Bell Prime Time TV Program. Upcoming: Jordi has new a new play in development with the Harold Green Jewish Theatre Company and is developing an original TV series with Bell Media. Paired with mentee Sarah Flynn
Kimberley Rampersad is a Canadian theatre maker. As an actor she has appeared in theatres across Canada including Mirvish, Royal MTC, and both the Stratford and Shaw festivals. Her choreography has received Dora nominations for Passing Strange (Musical Stage/Obsidian) and Seussical – the Musical (YPT) and an Evie Award for Matilda – The Musical (Royal MTC/Citadel/Arts Club). Her production of How Black Mothers Say I Love You (GCTC) received a Prix Rideau Award for outstanding production, and her productions of The Color Purple (Neptune, and Citadel/ Royal MTC) received Merritt and Sterling Awards for outstanding direction, and Evie, Merritt and Sterling awards for outstanding productions, respectively. Other directing credits include Serving Elizabeth (Stratford), O’Flaherty, V.C., My Fair Lady (with Tim Carroll), Anything Goes, Blues for an Alabama Sky (Shaw) and hang (with Philip Akin, Obsidian). In 2023 she directed King Lear (Stratford) and The Amen Corner (Shaw). In 2024, Kimberley helmed a critically acclaimed production of The Red Shoes at the Royal Shakespeare Company. Kimberley is the Associate Artistic Director of the Shaw Festival. Paired with mentee Jodi Kristjanson
Krista Jackson is the Artistic & Executive Director of Imago Theatre in Montreal. She holds the 2025 META for Outstanding Direction with Jimmy Blais for The Wolves (Imago/Geordie). In 2026 she’ll direct CRASH (Imago); The Importance of Being Earnest (Stratford Festival). World premieres: The Diviners (Stratford Festival); Liars at a Funeral (Blyth Festival); The Retreat (Imago); Space Girl (PTE); Dock Spider (Magnus); Summer of Semitism (WJT). Other: Dancing at Lughnasa (Shaw Festival). For Royal MTC: A Doll’s House: Part 2 (w/ Mirvish); Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley, Sense and Sensibility, Morning After Grace, Bittergirl: The Musical, Private Lives, The Seagull. Krista is a recipient of the Gina Wilkinson Prize. www.kristajackson.net Paired with mentee Kelly Rae Jenken
A costume designer for film, television and theatre for 50 years, Linda Muir has designed a wide array of characters in projects as varied as the artful period biography Thirty-Two Short Films About Glenn Gould to Foolproof, a contemporary diamond heist caper starring a young Ryan Reynolds. Always interested in Canadian projects, Linda has been inspired by some of the country’s most celebrated directors: Atom Egoyan, Exotica; John Greyson, Lilies; David Wellington, Long Day's Journey into Night, and Patricia Rozema, When Night is Falling. She has designed costumes for performing arts films such as Mulroney: the Opera, September Songs: The Music of Kurt Weill, Bach Cello Suite #4: Sarabande, Dido and Aeneas and Suzanne and Satie. Extensive research and attention to detail are the hallmarks of her work as seen in collaborations with Robert Eggers in his films The Witch, The Lighthouse, The Northman and Nosferatu, for which she received 2025 nominations from the Critics Choice Awards, BAFTA and the Academy Awards. Instagram: @lindamuircostumedesign | lindamuircostumedesign.com Paired with mentee Raphael Estillore
Megan Dart (she/her) produces arts events; leads large creative teams; advocates for the arts sector; writes plays; and creates theatre that rarely happens inside a theatre. It is Megan's great joy and honour to serve as the Executive Director of Fringe Theatre, producers of the Edmonton International Fringe Theatre Festival and stewards of the Fringe Theatre Arts Barns. The Edmonton Fringe Festival is the largest, longest-running Fringe Theatre Festival in North America and among the top five worldwide. Edmonton Fringe keeps the city on the map as a destination and creative engine, annually welcoming more than 800,000 site visits and igniting more than $20 million in economic impact. Megan proudly serves as the President of the Canadian Association of Fringe Festivals. Megan is also a sessional instructor with Grant MacEwan University; a University of Grant MacEwan Distinguished Alumni; a recipient of the Edmonton Artist Trust Fund Award, and was named one of the Top 100 Women in Business by The Wanderer. Paired with mentee Denise Piche
Stafford Arima is the Artistic Director of Theatre Calgary. For over 30 years, he has directed award-winning productions in six countries on three continents. In 2015, he became the first Asian Canadian to direct a musical on Broadway – Allegiance – and, in 2004, he was the first Asian Canadian to be nominated for an Olivier Award as Best Director for the West End premiere of the musical Ragtime. staffordarima.com Broadway/Off Broadway: Allegiance, Ragtime: 25th Anniversary Reunion Concert, Altar Boyz, Carrie, The Tin Pan Alley Rag, bare, Seussical (Associate Director), A Class Act (Associate Director). Regional: Bhangin’ It (La Jolla Playhouse), Dial M for Murder (World Premiere, The Old Globe), Saturday Night (York Theatre Company), Candide (San Francisco Symphony), Poster Boy (Williamstown Theatre Festival), Abyssinia (Goodspeed Musicals). Canada/International: Forgiveness (Stratford Festival, Best Director, Tyrone Guthrie Derek F. Mitchell Artistic Director’s Award, and the Betty Mitchell Award for Outstanding Direction), Bhangra Nation (Birmingham Rep.), The Secret Garden (Tokyo), Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris (Stratford), Broadway Dreams (Moscow), A Christmas Carol and Mary and Max - A New Musical (Theatre Calgary). Paired with mentee Kyle Mroz
Recently: Rogers v. Rogers (Crow's Theatre). Theatre: Someone Else (Dora Award), The Seagull, The Wedding Party (Crow's Theatre); 12 years at the Stratford Festival; Cyrano de Bergerac, Victory, The Apple Cart, My Fair Lady (Shaw Festival); Rice Boy, My Mother’s Feet, Homechild, Tartuffe (Canadian Stage); Hairspray (Toronto and Broadway); Benevolence, Courageous (Tarragon Theatre); Hamlet (National Arts Centre); Robert Lepage's Romeo et Juliette (Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan); I Am My Own Wife (Vancouver Playhouse); Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Citadel Theatre - Sterling Award); Angels in America (Alberta Theatre Projects); The Seagull (Royal MTC). Film/TV: This Is Wonderland, The Gilda Radner Story, The Day After Tomorrow, Strays, Transplant, Coroner, Under the Banner of Heaven, Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities. Upcoming: Amadeus and Heartbreak House at the Shaw Festival ‘26. Paired with mentee Artie Lorraine
Weyni Mengesha is a groundbreaking stage and screen director. She recently ended her seven-year tenure as the artistic director of Soulpepper Theatre, and has directed acclaimed productions nationally and internationally, including ‘da Kink in my Hair, Kim’s Convenience, A Streetcar Named Desire, Queen Goneril and Power of Sail. She has directed across Canada, London, New York and Los Angeles, receiving numerous Dora Mavor Moore Awards, two NAACP nominations and recognition from the Drama League (New York) and Drama Critics Circle (Los Angeles). In 2024, she received the Trailblazer Award at the CBC Legacy Awards. A committed educator, mentor, and producer of youth arts initiatives, Weyni was the artistic director of the A.M.Y (Artists Mentoring Youth) Project for seven years and co-founded a platform for young Ethiopian and Eritrean artists. She has trained young artists at the National Theatre School of Canada, The Canadian Film Centre and The Soulpepper Academy. Paired with mentee Kara Joseph