Location: Chief Dan George Theatre
Abstract
Over the last five-plus years, Canadian theatre and performance studies has seen a surge of collaborative, often large-scale research projects focused on EDDI issues. These projects share several important goals, including: to centre voices from historically marginalized communities across the artist/scholar spectrum; to uplift graduate student labour and support graduate student and early career scholar flourishing; to spark material change in casting, rehearsal, and production norms on Canadian post-secondary stages; and to bring academic resources and capacity into the community in an effort to bridge historical barriers and share space, money, time, and knowledge.
Our roundtable brings voices from several currently running projects together to host and anchor a conversation about where this trend has been, where it is now, and where it can and should go, especially in the midst of ongoing backlash against the concept of EDDI. We invite EVERYONE connected to, or interested in exploring more about, collaborative EDDI-focused projects to join us for an open discussion grounded in these questions:
What research designs, mobilizations or collaborations are proving effective at spurring change to theatre training and practice? How might we do better?
How and where is collaborative EDDI-driven research happening right now? What do some of the current models look like?
For projects in full swing or nearing completion, what has been learned? What might one do differently, if one could go back?
For new projects: what hurdles and challenges are we currently experiencing?
Many of these projects have been initiated by, or are managed by, mid-career and senior white scholars as allies. How can these scholar-leaders effectively decenter themselves while also acknowledging (and taking responsibility for) the enormous amount of labour and responsibility that large-scale funded projects (ex SSHRC partnership grants) generate?
Projects:
“(Re)Setting the Stage: The Past, Present, and Future of Casting Practices in Canada” (incl. Marlis Schweitzer and Mariló Nuñez;)
“Making Decolonial Shakespeare” (incl. Kim Solga and Keira Loughran)
“Critical Conversations: Re-assessing and Re-Imagining the Crisis of Theatre Criticism” (Michelle McArthur)
“Mapping Equity: Reading the Public Face of EDI in Canadian Drama and Performance Studies” (Barry Freeman and Malika Daya)
“Hemispheric Encounters” (incl. Laura Levin)
Biographies
Kim Solga is Professor of Theatre Studies at Western University. Her most recent book is Women Making Shakespeare in the 21st Century (Cambridge, 2024). She is the PI of the new SSHRC-funded project “Making Decolonial Shakespeare.”
Marlis Schweitzer is Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies at York University. She served as the PI on the five-year project, “(Re)Setting the Stage: The Past, Present, and Future of Casting Practices in Canada” (https://castingcanadiantheatre.ca/).
PANELIST BIOS
Ray Reid is a first-year PhD student in the Graduate Program in Theatre, Dance, & Performance Studies at York University. Originally hailing from St. Thomas, Ontario (birthplace of Rachel McAdams and deathplace of Jumbo the Elephant), he holds a B.A in English Literature & Theatre Studies and M.A. in English from Western University. His research interests include adapting Shakespeare, and the intersection of history, culture and theatre in Canada. For the past two years, Ray has been a regular contributor to the Literary Review of Canada.
Niloofar Rezaee is a third-year PhD student in English and Writing Studies at Western University in London, Ontario. Her research focuses on Iranian diasporic plays in Canada and how theatre engages questions of migration, identity, and political memory. She has also worked on the later theatre and radio plays of Samuel Beckett. Alongside her academic work, she is an Iranian-Kurdish activist who advocates for the freedom and democratic future of Iran.
Kim Solga is Professor of Theatre Studies at Western University. Her most recent book is Women Making Shakespeare in the 21st Century (Cambridge, 2024). She is the PI of the new SSHRC-funded project “Making Decolonial Shakespeare.”
Michelle MacArthur (she/her) is Associate Professor in the University of Windsor’s School of Dramatic Art. Her SSHRC-funded research focuses on three main, often intersecting areas: theatre criticism, contemporary Canadian theatre, and feminism and performance. Recent publications appear in Studies in Musical Theatre, Research in Drama Education, and Theatre Research in Canada, where she currently serves as co-editor with Jessica Riley. She is also co-editor, with Sasha Kovacs, of the forthcoming Making Moscovitch: A Feminist Theatre Scrapbook (Playwrights Canada Press, 2026).
Bethany Schaufler-Biback (she/her) is a second year PhD student at the University of Toronto’s Centre for Drama, Theatre, and Performance Studies. Her research emerges at the intersection of disability studies and audience studies, where she investigates how disability theatre and accessibility arts shape audience experience. Bethany is a research associate at The Centre for Spectatorship and Audience Research. Her co-authored work can be found in the Journal for Consent Based Performance and Studies in Theatre and Performance.
Barry Freeman (he/him) is an Associate Professor and Program Director of Theatre and Performance at the University of Toronto Scarborough and a graduate faculty member at the University of Toronto’s Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies. A theatre researcher, writer, educator and director, Barry teaches classes, leads projects and supervises graduate research at the intersection of performance and education. He leads multiple digital research projects with both archival and pedagogical objectives, including The PLEDGE Project (pledgeproject.ca), Stage Wright: A Celebration of UTSC Theatre History, and The Living Room: Sharing Drama-Informed Strategies for Civil Discourse. These projects all translate new theatre and performance research into usable teaching tools grounded in collectivist ethics and embodied practice.
Malika Daya (she/her) is a Canadian artist-scholar-practitioner of South Asian and Tanzanian descent whose work sits at the intersections of theatre and global development. Her practice spans directing, dramaturgy, playwriting, and producing, with an emphasis on intercultural performance, applied theatre, and arts activism. She is passionate about designing intentional artistic containers where diasporic artists hold space for difference, build solidarities, and explore the poetics of hyphenated identities. Malika has worked internationally at the Art and Global Health Centre Africa and Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and locally with Soulpepper Theatre, Volcano, Community Arts Guild, Arts4all & more. She is the Co-Founder & Creative Director of in draft collective, and Coordinator for the Knowledge Equity Lab. She holds a Bachelor’s in International Development and Master’s in Theatre from the University of Toronto. Malika will be beginning her PhD in Theatre at UofT this fall.
Denise Rogers Valenzuela is a Chilean puppeteer, researcher, and translator based in Montréal. She holds a PhD in Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies from York University. Since 2021, she has been part of Hemispheric Encounters’ Knowledge Mobilization team, where she supports multilingual exchange through translation, subtitling, and communications.
Esteban Donoso is a researcher and artist from Quito, Ecuador, currently based in Montreal, Canada. He currently works as Research Assistant at Hemispheric Encounters: Developing Transborder Research-Creation Practices. Esteban holds a PhD in Theatre and Performance Studies from York University. His work focuses on dance and performance archiving and transmissions, oral history, and practice-based methodologies.
Marlis Schweitzer (she/her) is Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies at York University, where she is also the Chair of the Department of Theatre, Dance, and Performance. Between 2020-2025, Marlis led the (Re)Setting the Stage project, which examined the past, present, and future of casting practices in Canada (https://castingcanadiantheatre.ca/). Project outputs included a special issue of Canadian Theatre Review on the topic of Race and Casting (co-edited with Jamie Robinson and Marilo Nunez) and the Shaking Up Shakespeare podcast featuring interviews with many Canadian theatre artists and academics on the topic of Shakespeare’s role in Canadian culture and society. Last spring, she and her York colleagues co-convened a symposium entitled “Facing Backlash: Performance in the Age of Reactionary Politics.” An edited series of quotes from the symposium will soon be published as a Forum piece in Theatre Research in Canada.
Mariló Nuñez (she/her) is an award-winning Chilean-Canadian director, dramaturge, and scholar. She received the Johanna Metcalf Performing Arts Award in Theatre (2022). Current: Unity 1918 (Director, University of Winnipeg); Director/dramaturge for the 2025 (Agency) and 2024 (Ice/Berg) TMU/Tarragon Theatre Playwright’s Project. Dramaturge-in-Residence at the 2024 Polyphonic Playwright Residency (Rice & Beans Theatre, Vancouver) and the 2024 Dramaturge-in-Residence (PARC Playwright Residency, Sackville, NB). New Wave Your Behaviour by Tor Lukasik-Foss (Hamilton, Victoria, Edmonton, Winnipeg Fringes); Understory by Treasa Levasseur & Tor Lukasik-Foss; One Perfect Day by Margarita Valderrama (Caminos Festival/Aluna). She teaches playwriting across the country using the Fornes Method. She was the founding Artistic Director of Alameda Theatre Company, a company for Latinx Canadian playwrights. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing and is pursuing her PhD in Theatre & Performance Studies at York University.
Jamie Robinson (he/him) is an Associate Professor for York University’s Theatre, Dance and Performance Department where his research continues to explore inclusive and accessible Theatre for both artists and audiences. He is currently researching a digital & theatrical exploration of pluralism, from an Afro-centric lens. He was co-editor of the Winter 2023 Canadian Theatre Review issue on “Casting practices in Canadian Theatre”, and co-collaborator/moderator for Canadian theatre casting symposiums (2021, 2023, 2025). Directing credits include Canadian Stage’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Toronto’s High Park, and previous Artistic Director of The Guild Festival Theatre in Scarborough, Ontario. Select Theatre acting credits include: A Doll’s House (Canadian Stage), Moonlight Schooner (Necessary Angel),Much Ado About Nothing &Measure for Measure (Canadian Stage in High Park), Risky Phil (Young People’s Theatre. Dora Award Winner, Outstanding Performance), Richard III (Metachroma Theatre. METAward nomination), and four seasons with the Stratford Festival of Canada, along with numerous film/television roles.