Karen Hines’ (she, her) multi-prize-winning plays offer keen musings on modern life, combining such disparate elements as magical realism, pink-brand feminism and environmental disarray. Her solo performances and ‘little’ films featuring her darkly comic character ‘Pochsy’ have traveled the globe. Hines has collaborated as a director and dramaturg with many fellow artists, and her productions, plays and performances have seen venues like One Yellow Rabbit, Joe’s Pub (Public Theatre), Astor Place Off-Broadway, Tarragon, Videofag, Canadian Stage, Soulpepper, NAC. For Festival du Jamais Lu 2022, Hines’ ‘Tous les petits animaux que j’ai dévouré’ was translated and staged (Mishka Lavigne; Lisa L’Heureux) and Hines’ real estate horror Crawlspace continues to micro-theatres across Canada in French and English. Crawlspace is being adapted as screenplay, and is now a CBC podcast (PlayMe; Radio One). Upcoming, Pochsy IV premieres January 2023.

Mishka Lavigne (she, her) is a playwright and literary translator based in Ottawa/Gatineau. Her plays have been produced, read and developed in Canada, Switzerland, France, Germany and the United States. Her plays Havre and Copeau were awarded the Governor General’s Literary Prize for Drama (French). Her recent play Copeaux, a movement-based poetic creation piece with director É Perron premiered in Ottawa in March 2020. She is currently working on her new play Shorelines and her first opera libretto with composer Tim Brady. Mishka is a National New Play Network (USA) alumni playwright as well as a member of the PGC and CEAD.

Miriam Cusson (she, her) is a director, actor, author, creator and dramaturg. Her work explores the poetry of violence and cruelty in contemporary society while questioning the foundations of our community. Her approach embraces the collisions between vulnerability and strength, between creation and destruction, and seeks to provoke a reflection on expectations, conventions and preconceived notions. She has often been called a rebel. It suits her perfectly. Miriam is the recipient of the Ontario Arts Council’s JOHN HIRSCH Award, the Greater Sudbury Mayor’s Award for the Arts and Laurentian University’s Excellence in Teaching Award. Miriam has been an Assistant Professor at the University of Ottawa’s Theatre Department since August 2021.

Artistic Director of the Théâtre français de Toronto since 2021, Karine Ricard (she, her) is an actor, director, director and author. Recently she directed her first feature film Les Liaisons dangereuses : correspondances inédites. At TfT she performed in Molière’s Le Misanthrope, Marivaux’s La seconde surprise de l’amour and in English in The Numbers Games. Her play Les sept péchés capitaux was presented at the Des Feuilles Vives festival in Ottawa. She is currently directing Yassama et la calebasse aux cauris at the WEE Festival in Toronto.

Bianca Richard (she, her) is an actor and puppeteer who also writes for theatre and film. Originally from New Brunswick, she received her bachelor’s degree in drama from the Université de Moncton in 2013. Since then, she has navigated between acting on television (À la Valdrague, Newbies), theatrical creation (Radi, Les limites du bruit possible, ‘T”, Pépins) and producing short films (Out of tune, Al-Ghoula à la plage). Since 2019, she been developing the play Parler Mal in collaboration with Gabriel Robichaud. She is also the new co-host of the national youth TV series ONIVA! (Radio-Canada).