Michael Caldwell

Artistic Director

Michael Caldwell (he/him) is an artistic director, curator, producer, choreographer, dancer/actor, and arts advocate, based in Toronto (Tkaronto) Canada.

Currently, Michael serves as Artistic Director at SummerWorks in Tkaronto, and as a Co-Curator for Festival of Dance Annapolis Royal, in Nova Scotia. In addition, he is a Guest Curator in various national and international contexts, acts as a consultant with various arts organizations, and is a mentor to many emerging artists/curators in the Canadian arts community. Recently, as Creative Director: Programming at Generator, he led the re-imagination of the overall governance structure of the organization, moving towards a co-leadership framework. Previously, Michael played a pivotal role in the foundational growth and development of Fall for Dance North, serving as Executive Producer for eight years. He has also previously guided projects with CanAsian Dance, Dusk Dances, Older & Reckless, and Porch View Dances.

Garnering critical acclaim, his choreography has been commissioned and presented throughout Canada and abroad at major festivals, in traditional venues and in site-responsive and community-engaged contexts. He is currently working on two collaborative trans-disciplinary performance projects, in addition to a new international collaboration with Gerry Trentham. Michael is a two-time K.M. Hunter Charitable Foundation Artist Award finalist. Michael has performed and collaborated with over 55 of Canada’s esteemed performance creators and companies, working internationally and performing across North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. His performances have earned him two (2) Dora Mavor Moore Awards for outstanding performance in dance.

With a bachelor’s degree in film/art history from Syracuse University in upstate New York, and professional dance training at Dance Arts Institute, Michael now serves as President of the Board of Directors at The CanDance Network and also, at Toffan Rhythm Productions Inc.

Morgan Norwich

Managing Director

Born and raised in Tkaronto, Morgan Norwich (she/her) is an arts producer, creator and administrator, who brings to SummerWorks fifteen years of experience in non-profit theatre, with a specific focus on performing arts festivals and partnership building.

For four years, Norwich served as Operations & Partnerships Coordinator at Theatre Alberta, a provincial arts service organization based in Amiskwacîwâskahikan (Edmonton) where she managed partner and member relations as well as general operations. During this time, Morgan participated in a multi-phase adaptive change and capacity-building program led by U.S.-based EmcArts to help address complex challenges and transform organizational practices. In addition to her most recent role as Development Manager at Toronto Fringe, Morgan has worked with The Rhubarb Festival and SummerWorks in a variety of producing and administrative roles over the years.

For ten years, she and playwright Johnnie McNamara Walker created and produced new works as Nobody’s Business Theatre. Their most notable project, Redheaded Stepchild, appeared at SummerWorks Festival in 2010. Written and performed by Johnnie and directed by Morgan, the show toured festivals across North America, and was published in 2016 by Playwrights Canada Press. Morgan is a founding member and the emcee of BoylesqueTO, Canada’s premiere “Boylesque” troupe, with whom she’s been performing since 2008.

Max Cameron Fearon

Festival Producer

Bio and photo coming soon.

Jahnelle Jones

Festival Producer

Jahnelle Jones (she/her) is a Black queer Toronto based writer, actor, director, producer and winner of the “Most Well Rounded” student award (circa 6th grade). She’s been a member of the Toronto theatre community for over a decade and has worked and trained with theatre companies like Tarragon Theatre, Paprika Festival, Shakespeare in the Ruff, and the SummerWorks Festival. Aside from theatre, Jahnelle also creates and writes for tv and film. In 2022, Jahnelle co-founded Second Adolescence Productions, a production company focused on creating diverse coming-of-age stories. Through Second Adolescence, Jahnelle wrote and directed her first short film Fourteen and is developing multiple features. Jahnelle enjoys creating work that centers racialized women, especially Black women, in spaces she feels they are underrepresented in.

Micah Champagne

Production Manager

Micah Champagne is a queer artist living in Toronto, Canada. She works as a technician, Technical Director, Designer and Production Manager for theatre. They have also transferred their skills and begun working for IATSE 873 as a Film Technician and is now a member of the Grips department. They love using their technical expertise to help create stories of all kinds as well as shaping stories through writing and editing. She is so excited to be able to be a part of making SummerWorks function and flourish during its incredible 35th year.

Jadi Darawi

Production Manager

Jadi Darawi (they/them) is a Production Manager and multi-disciplinary artist based in Toronto. They are a 2025 graduate of the Performance Production program at Toronto Metropolitan University. Their recent theatrical credits include Production and Stage Manager for Mahabharata: Khana with Why Not Theatre, Production Manager for “Sanguine” with Cahoots Theatre, Production Manager for “Love and the Trick of Time,” with Cahoots Theatre, Production Manager for “I Do, I Don’t, I Dare,” with Talk is Free Theatre, and Stage Manager for “R.A.V.E.” with Outside the March. In their spare time, Jadi enjoys carpentry, hand embroidery, and driving big trucks.

Monica Bradford-Lea

Marketing Manager

Monica Bradford-Lea is an Arts Marketing Specialist and Project Manager with 11+ years experience working for organizations including Canada’s National Arts Centre, Tarragon Theatre, What the Festival, Toronto Fringe, and UPROAR arts festival (co-founder).

She is also a Playwright, Actor, Producer, and Co-founder of her award-winning theatre company, Spicy Day. With Spicy Day, Monica has created, performed, and toured original plays across Canada since 2016, garnering awards including Best of Toronto Fringe for ‘In Waking Life’, which tours to Edmonton Fringe in 2025. The company is known for creating new, interactive work that unites audiences in laughter, while opening honest and complex conversation on current social issues.

Monica is also known for her solo physical comedy, ‘Beth-Anne’, about a girl who turns herself into a horse, which had its Toronto premiere at SummerWorks 2024.

Claire Whitaker

Marketing Manager

Claire Whitaker (she/her) is a freelance contemporary dance artist, administrator and social-media marketer in Toronto, Ontario. Recently, she has performed a solo work titled “In Quietness”, which premiered at The Citadel: Ross Centre for Dance under the wind in the leaves collective 2024/25 season.

Claire is a photographer and video editor, and has been a member of the wind in the leaves collective since 2020. Starting as a dance collaborator, she has taken on an administrative and marketing role, helping to build their audience. In 2022, she started co-producing “Mallo Nights – An Evening of Poetry and Dance” with collective Artistic Director charles c. smith and collaborator Ana Groppler. These events give improvisational performance opportunities to emerging/professional poets and dancers in Toronto and will be continuing again this fall.

jonnie lombard

Patron Services Manager – Ticketing

jonnie is a trans theatre thing from the woods swirling through side-quests of sentience. When they are not behind the SummerWorks ticket counter, they perform and create in pop-art melodrama playgrounds from bars, to basements, to bathrooms and back again, always with the primary intention of wearing a fun new outfit. They have recently been a monster made of markers, a second-grade princess, a cyber-canine demon, a snail-mountain lovechild, and a pigeon. If you ask jonnie to go dancing they will always say yes!

Elizabeth Staples

Patron Services Manager – Front of House

Liz (she/they) is a queer femme settler of Italian ancestry, who was born and raised in Tkarón:to (Toronto). She is a multidisciplinary theatre creator, director, performer, producer and arts administrator. She is one half of STARLiz, a performer-director duo with STARLIGHT, who creates experimental performance art and parties. She was a part of Factory Theatre’s Training Enhancement Program Acting Cohort in 2023 and Directing Cohort in 2024. She is currently developing a solo show, Chez Moi, a love letter to the Lesbian bars of Toronto.

Her work has been supported by Nightswimming, Factory Theatre, Tarragon Theatre, Nightwood Theatre, Volcano Theatre, BIBT, and the Toronto Arts Council, Ontario Arts Council and Canada Council for the Arts.

Liz wants you to fall in love with theatre!

Kass Prus

Community Engagement Manager, Metcalf Foundation Intern

Krystal Kavita Jagoo

Accessibility Coordinator

Krystal Kavita Jagoo is a fat brown queer disabled immigrant woman, intent on anti-oppressive practice despite not renewing her registration with the Ontario College of Social Workers and Social Service Workers (OCSWSSW), after witnessing their failure to even call for a ceasefire throughout 2024. She is returning to SummerWorks after supporting the 2024 festival with her commitment to Disability Justice, after years as an Accessibility Advisor at the University of Toronto. Jagoo’s essay, “A Slow Death in Academia,” was presented at tapashta, SpringWorks’ Digital ShortWorks Showcase. Her “University Ableism Bingo” was featured in “Pandemic: A Feminist Response,” Inclusion Canada’s 2022 “This is Ableism” campaign, etc. Her “Surviving Academia in this Body” digital storytelling project highlights how white supremacy fuels ableism.

Mandy E. MacLean

Accessibility Coordinator

Mandy E. MacLean (she/her) is a theatremaker and access & disability arts practitioner living in Tkarón:to with her Cocker Spaniel, Mulder. She is a proud Maritimer, is a member of the Mad Community, and lives with a non-visible disability.

She is the Artistic & Access Producer at Crossroads Theatre. Other recent work includes: Dramaturgy & Accessibility Associate (Metcalf Intern) at Theatre Passe Muraille, Assistant Director (“Neither Here Nor There”, Sick & Twisted), Associate Dramaturge & Access Support (“Blind Dates”, TPM), and Producing & Line Support (“The Flin Flon Cowboy”, TPM). Mandy has engaged in various capacities with TAPA, PACT, Tarragon Theatre, YPT, Roseneath, Folda Fest, Canadian Stage, Frog in Hand, Generator, and the W. Ross School for the Blind. She is developing The Concussion Play; or How I Learned to Wait, supported by the OAC, Why Not, and Tangled Arts.

Ashley Perez

Artist Advisor

Ashley Perez is a Teacher, Dancer and Choreographer. She is the co-artistic director of Mix Mix Dance Collective. Mix Mix has showcased work at Toronto Fringe (2013/2017), Next Stage Theatre Festival (2014), Fall For Dance North (2017), Contemporaneity 3.0 (2019), and represented Canada at the Jeux de la Francophonie (2017) in Abidjan. Ashley was awarded the 2018 Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding Performance, Ensemble in the Dance Division for Floor’d presented by Holla Jazz in 2018. Since the pandemic, Ashley has completed her MA in Dance at York University, a co-collaboration with Toronto Dance Theatre’s Magic of Assembly (2023). She recently co-produced and performed her first solo work Generating Danse in Montreal commissioned by Danse Cite (2024).

Dasha Plett

Artist Advisor

Dasha Plett is a Winnipeg-based artist and transsexual working with performance, sound, and video. Highlights include performances for Cluster Festival, Nuit Blanche, Young Lungs Dance Exchange, Art Holm, WNDX Festival (where her performance Etudes for Keyboard received Best New Prairie Work), and send+receive (where she opened for internationally-renowned computer musician and performer Carl Stone). As a sound designer and composer she has worked with the Buddies in Bad Times, Stratford Festival, Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, Prairie Theatre Exchange, Cercle Molière, Theatre Projects Manitoba, Mammalian Diving Reflex, OneTrunk Theatre, Frances Koncan, Waawaate Fobister, Debbie Patterson, and Alexandra Elliott. Dasha is also one half of We Quit Theatre, a performance collective with Gislina Patterson that has toured nationally to Buddies in Bad Times, PushOFF, OFFTA, SummerWorks, LOMAA, Stratfest@home, and Théâtre Catapulte. She is a proud member of IATSE local ADC659. Visit Dasha online at www.princessdasha.com.

Lisa Cooke Ravensbergen

Artist Advisor

Lisa Cooke Ravensbergen (she/her/ikwe) is a tawny blend of Ojibwe/Swampy Cree and English/Irish. She is a multi-hyphenate theatre artist and scholar based in unceded Coast Salish territory (colonially known as Vancouver). Her joyful practice is strengthened by her mother-heart as it encompasses a love of performance, new work, big thoughts, traditional culture, and activism. Lisa is an Associate Artist with Full Circle: First Nations Performance and currently serves as the Advisor for Indigenous Futures at the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival. She raises her hands in thanks to her hosts to her Coast Salish relatives on whose land her artistic practice was born.