Land Acknowledgement
The land on which we gather is the traditional territory of the Erie, Neutral, Huron Wendat, Haudenosaunee and Mississaugas. This land is covered by the Dish With One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant, which was an agreement between the Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabek to share and care for the resources around the Great Lakes This land is also covered by the Between the Lakes Purchase, 1792, between the Crown and the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation.
Today, this land is home to many Indigenous people from across Turtle Island. We recognize that we must do more to learn about the rich history of this land so we can better understand our roles as neighbours and caretakers.
A message from Tottering Biped Artistic Director, Trevor Copp
Tottering Biped Theatre's Shakespeare by Nature series came about in response to a need.
Hamilton has Community Theatres galore on one hand, and Theatre Aquarius on the other. One has many opportunities but no pay. The other has very few opportunities that generally go out to non-local artists. So what does a local aspiring professional do? They move away.
This series is here to stop the Artistic Brain Drain and keep our Artists working. This is the only program that has paid opportunities for local emerging artists, featuring not only living wages but also the chance to work with established artists. And this show is just a start. There's no reason why this can't become a legacy event to attract audiences from all over. How about running for over a month? More than one show? What about dance theatre, children's theatre, and more? We'd love to get more ambitious still. Helping us get ambitious: whether it's through funding, billeting, rehearsal spaces, printing services, or any other means please reach out. This series is precarious and we'd love champions to come forward and ensure it's here for years to come!
Director’s Note for As She Likes It, 2024
Sometimes we approach a play with an already formed idea about how and why it should be done. Sometimes, the idea is formed almost unintentionally. Which is how ‘As She Likes It’ came about.
When Trevor and Alma asked me which of Shakespeare’s plays I would like to direct this summer, I immediately said ‘As You Like It’ – Rosalind is one of Shakespeare’s great women and the themes of love and redemption which permeate the play resonate deeply for me. Then came the hard decisions based on potential budget How many actors could we use? A regular production might have over twenty actors, and at Stratford that number could be doubled. For a company like Tottering Biped, that is simply not possible. So, we reframed the question How many actors could Tottering Biped afford? The realistic answer was five. I gulped and started thinking. If we had five actors, how could we divide up the parts? How could I edit the play to make sense? At that point I made a large, but exciting, leap.
Let’s cast all women and tell the play from their perspective. I hacked out Touchstone, Jacques and Duke Senior (and all the minor characters) and looked at what was left. It was then that the idea of a picnic to celebrate the wedding of Rosalind and Orlando was born, a bachelorette of a particularly creative sort We held casting sessions and watched as groups of young women came together to share their creative ideas and interpretations of some of the text. More ideas were born.
And then the set Again, we had virtually no budget and the actors would have to set up and strike it every night. Out of the blue came the idea of yoga balls, eminently portable and conducive to all kinds of wild ideas. And so it went…one of the actors works as a professional stilt-walker so of course we had to incorporate stilts. Every one of the cast sings and, it turns out, plays the ukulele! Zach, our composer, ran with their skills and created songs specifically for them, using the words of the text in the play but reflecting a range of musical styles young women might be familiar with.
And so it has grown The process has been truly collaborative from start to finish Movement sequences created by Trevor have been absorbed and re-animated by the cast. Directorial ideas have been thrown out the window and replaced by much more interesting choices driven by the actors
In the end, this beautiful play about love, friendship, and play itself has become ‘As She Likes It’, faithfully based on ‘As You Like It’ but very much its own being. It has given me great joy to see the strength of this group of young women and to see the solid foundation of friendship which underlies the production in action. Their generosity has been boundless; the production is a gift from them to, not only Rosalind, but all of us. Enjoy!
Diana August 2, 2024
Approximate run time: 80 minutes with no intermission
ENSEMBLE
Madeleine Storms
Julia Scaringi
Zita Nyarady
Rebecca Durance Hine
Alma Sarai
Creative & Crew
Director....................................................................................Diana Belshaw
Stage Manager ...................................................................Adrienne Moody
Assistant Stage Manager....................................................Eric Lessa Fratini
Music Director............................................................................Zach Parsons
Movement Coordinator................................................................Trevor Copp
Project Coordinator......................................................................Alma Sarai
Assistant Project Coordinator/Prop Coordinator......Rebecca Durance Hine
Technical Consultant................................................................Cedric Martin
Rebecca (she/her) is honoured to be back with Tottering Biped Theatre for a fourth time as part of this incredibly talented cast and crew! She is a graduate from the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts at Brock University and from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. Rebecca’s credits include Lydia in Big Love (Brock University Theatre), Honey in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (Theatre Burlington), and Caliban in The Tempest (Tottering Biped Theatre). Besides acting, her loves include reading, writing, travelling, and camping. Her favourite movie is Empire Records, her favourite season is autumn, and her favourite people are animals. She would like to thank her husband and family for their unwavering support.
Julia (she/her) is thrilled to be making her debut with Tottering Biped Theatre. She is a graduate of the Marilyn I Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts at Brock University and the Theatre Conservatory Program at Humber. Selected theatre credits include Our Town (Lyndesfarne Theatre Company), That Ugly Mess (Dopolavoro Teatrale), The Infinity Machine (The Theatre Centre), The Great Shadow and The Cavan Blazers (4th Line Theatre). Julia is a corporate and commercial actor with roles in short films; The Spread, The End of S*x and Omobella Palace. She firmly believes that music, drama and dance should be accessible to everyone and very much enjoys her work as an arts educator. Connect with Julia for more creative content @juliascaringi_
Lead with love, always.
Julia Scaringi
Zita Nyarady (she/her) exists in the centre of the Venn Diagram of dance, theatre and circus. Zita has worked with REAson D’être, Kaeja d’Dance, Theatre Direct, Guild Festival Theatre, Crossroads Theatre, LookUp Theatre, Clay and Paper Theatre, Connection Dance Works, Hercinia Arts Collective, Pilobolus Dance Theatre and Odin Teatret. Her company- The Grand Salto Theatretours original all ages physical comedy work nationally and internationally. Zita is also a founder of Seeking Giants Collective which works in stilts and spectacle. Zita was a Heliconian Club Dramatist in Residence and is in the Cirque du Soleil performer database. Zita is thrilled to be part of Tottering Biped’s Shakespeare in Nature. Not only has being part of this project provided her deep insight into the Lakeshore West GO train schedules but also the opportunity to meet and work with the amazing, brilliant and creative As She Likes It team!!!
With Tottering Biped Theatre, Alma (she/her) is the Associate Producer and has played in every "Shakespeare by Nature" since its conception in 2016. Credits with TBT include Hermia in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Portia in The Merchant of Venice, Lady Macbeth in Macbeth, Malvolia in Twelfth Night and Trinculo/Gonzalo in The Tempest. For the Summer Shakespeare Project she has been the Producing Director since 2020. Other credits include Canadian Screen Award Winner “Patty vs. Patty,” Acting ensemble in the COC’s “The Cunning Little Vixen,” and Sandy the Starfish in “Finny the Shark.”
Zita Nyarady
Alma Sarai
Madeleine Storms (she/they) is a multidisciplinary actor and dance artist residing in Toronto and she is incredibly excited to be making her debut with Tottering Biped! Recent credits include the Dancer in The Seqret City (DopoLavoro Teatrale) and Alcestis’ Soul in Alcestis is going to Die (Sunbeam Theatre Co.) As a lifelong mover, shaker, and dance creator, Storms seeks to plumb the depths of physicality and find the joy in movement in all their theatrical endeavours. When not teaching dance classes or performing Shakespeare, she can almost certainly be found at a local punk show somewhere in Toronto, dancing the night away.
Trevor (he/him) founded Tottering Biped Theatre (TBT) in 2009, a professional company emphasizing original, issue driven, and highly physical work. He completed Theatre Studies at Waterloo, a MA at Guelph, and Mime at the Marcel Marceau School in Paris. He has been a professional actor for over 15 years in pieces ranging from classical to contemporary, performing in over 40 national and international cities and Theatre Festivals. Trevor is also a professional Mime, a regional American Style Latin Dance Champion, and has taught/coached physical Theatre for over a dozen professional Theatre companies and University Theatre programs, including The Shaw Festival, CanStage/Studio 180, Theatre Beyond Words, Pat the Dog Playwright Centre, Zacada Circus, Irish Classical Theater, The Iberoamerican Festival in Bogota, and 6 University Theatre Departments.
He has been recognized with the Hamilton Theatre Artist of the Year, Burlington Artist of the Year, the Ontario Presenters Artist of the Year, a Paula Award, and a Chalmer’s Fellowship Award. His work has been featured in the Canadian Theatre Review, TED.com, CBC, WholeNote, Dance International, and the Dance Current.
Madeleine Storms
Trevor Copp
Adrienne (she/they) has been thrilled to work with the lovely cast and team of 'As She Likes It'. She is currently a student in the 'Technical Production' program at Sheridan College, and has worked on many shows including ‘Bad Hats Theatre’s Alice in Wonderland’ and ‘In Studio: The Words and Music of Britta Johnson’ with Sheridan.
Adrienne Moody
Eric Lessa Fratini (he/him) is very excited to be working on his first production with Tottering Biped Theatre! Eric is a recent graduate from Ancaster High School and will begin attending Sheridan College in the Technical Production for the Performing Arts program this fall. Eric has worked on numerous productions in the past, with prior experience as an Assistant Stage Manager for two shows for Theatre Ancaster’s Stage 3 Program, We Will Rock You, and Matilda. He recently finished his time as the Stage Manager and Technical Director for Ancaster High’s drama department, having worked on shows such as Frozen Jr. (Sound Mixer), and Mean Girls (Stage Manager). Proudly, Eric has also produced an awardwinning play for the 2024 NTS DramaFest, Ties to a Murder, of which he was the writer and director. Additionally, he was also the lighting and sound designer, both of which earned awards at the festival. Eric is overjoyed to be working with the fantastic cast and crew of As She Likes It this summer and can’t wait for everyone to see all the hard work on stage!
Eric Lessa Fratini
Zach Parsons is a Toronto-based actor, sound designer, and musician.
He's done sound design and composed full scores for stage plays, audio plays, short films, TV commercials, podcasts, and continues to experiment with more! Recent sound design credits include: Patty Picker, Good Old Days, and the Dora-nominated production of Bone Cage (One Four One Collective), Urban ARTeries (Theatre Gargantua), Bullfinch's Mythology, Journey to the East (Tottering Biped Theatre), Barn Talk, The Other Side of the River (Backyard Theatre).
He's also acted in all of the prior seasons of Tottering Biped Theatre's Shakespeare by Nature productions, for which he's done sound design and composed original music for many of the performances.
Diana Belshaw has been an actor for over fifty years, having worked at most of the major theatre companies in Canada. She joined the Tottering Bipeds last year as director of The Tempest and is delighted to be back in Hamilton with As She Likes It. Diana’s career was focussed primarily on the development of new Canadian work as both an actor and a director, but also included classical work as well as film and television. She was the Professional Theatre Co-ordinator at Theatre Ontario, where she administered and developed their Professional Training Programs, before moving on to become Director of the Theatre Performance Program at Humber College.
After leaving Humber, Diana was Director of Animikiig, the Creators’ Program at Native Earth Performing Arts. Under Diana’s direction, Animikiig became a multi-disciplinary development program for Indigenous creative artists in all areas of the performing arts.
Diana continues to work both as actor and as director/dramaturg. She directed Mieko Ouchi’s play Burning Mum for fu-gen theatre, as well as a rewrite of Winston Kam’s classic play Bachelor Man with Brenda Kamino for Renaissance Canadian Theatre. Diana was in the cast of Nina Lee Aquino’s production of The Unplugging by Yvette Nolan at Factory Theatre and recently directed a new play by David Yee love in the time of werewolves written for the graduating class of York University’s Conservatory. She has received the Maggie Bassett Award for her contributions to theatre in Ontario and a much-treasured Harold Award from the independent theatre community in Toronto.
Zach Parsons
Diana Belshaw
Thank You
Pieczonka Family Foundation Fund
Nicola and Ben Simmons
Sarah & Gabriel Edell
John Greene and Sue Stewart-Greene
Khurum Shafi and Family
Elizabeth and Bruno Robitaille
Anita Darrell and Tibor Sarai
Turkstra Lumber
Leggat Foundation
Paris Dental Centre
In Kind Donations
We want to make this bigger and better every year AND we want to keep prices down to Pay-
What-You-Can. Cash donations are, of course, brilliant - but if you'd like to help another way, here is a list of in-kind donations we are seeking for the future:
Billets!
If you have a spare bedroom, we'd love the help in putting up an actor
Truck rentals
Printing services
Media assistance
Gift Cards
Canadian Tire
Michael's
Dollarama
Gasoline
Professional set, props, costume assistance (sewing, painting)
Volunteers to help usher
