Arden of Faversham
Cast & Crew
Mairi Babb - ALICE ARDEN
Mairi is positively giddy to be back with BASH'd on this journey to Faversham! Her last adventure was as Kent in King Lear earlier this year and before that she played The Queen in Cymbeline. She has played lead roles at theatres all over Canada including: War Horse (Mirvish/North America/Tokyo), The Great Divide (Harold Green Jewish Theatre), Spider's Web (Aquarius), Our Town, Educating Rita, The Tempest (RMTC), Brief Encounter (VP/RMTC), Guys and Dolls (MTC/Citadel/TC), Cymbeline, King Lear (Shakespeare BASH'd), The Rocky Horror Show (Canstage/RMTC), The Last Resort (Charlottetown Festival), and A Midsummer Night's Dream and Macbeth (Bard on the Beach). Directing credits include: Two Weird Tales (Eldritch), february - a love story (Sudden Spark), Early August (Lighthouse), Diminished (Driftwood's Trafalgar 24). Mairi has also appeared in Run The Burbs, Ruby and the Well, Good Witch, What We Do In The Shadows, Aunty B's House, and Alice, Darling, The Stanley Dynamic and also in the Audible series Mistletoe Murders.
|
Michael Chiem - MICHAEL
Michael is excited to be making his return to Shakespeare BASH'd! Previously he played Silvius in As You Like It with BASH'd. Most recently, he played Craig Bowker Jr. in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child at Mirvish. It is nice to see some old friends and enjoy a night of theatre in a cozy space. OTHER CREDITS: Casimir and Caroline, The Howland Company; Asking For It, Thousand Islands Playhouse; A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare in Action.
|
Taylor Cranston - SUSAN |
Callan Forrester - CLARKE / PRENTICE |
Taylor Cranston (she/her) is THRILLED to be making her Shakespeare BASH’d debut. Taylor is a Toronto based actor, singer, voice-over artist and a graduate of Toronto Metropolitan University’s Performance Acting program.
James and Julia have transformed the way Taylor looks at and works with classical text; allowing her to create nuanced and truthful characters while using the language of Shakespeare and his contemporaries to tell colourful, engaging and important stories. She is excited to use these teachings to be part of bringing a Bash’d reading to life. Select Credits Include: Bo (Retrograde, These by the Bay), Sandie (Almost Woodstock, Port Hope Arts Festival), The Duchess (The Duchess of Malfi, TMU), Pheobe (As You Like It, Bard in the Park), Puck (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, TMU) and Avery (Centreline, Newmarket National 10 Minute Play Festival). When not on stage, you can find Taylor drinking an Aperol Spritz or running around the streets of Toronto training for her next marathon. |
Callan Forrester (they/them) is a non-binary performer, producer, director and writer originally from Montreal. They moved to Toronto in 2019 to attend Randolph College for the Performing Arts, where they graduated as class valedictorian in 2021. They have since been so thrilled to have co-founded The Playhouse Collective, participated in Toronto Fringe's TENT program for young producers, started performing in drag, and met so many wonderful artists through the community of Toronto theatre. One day, Callan hopes to produce their own original queer musical which explores the spectrum of what being queer means. Selected theatre credits include The Leading Player Project (EveryBODY on Stage), Ride The Cyclone, Little Women (The Playhouse Collective), Midsummer Night's Dream/Clown's Reading Shakespeare (Panoply Collective) and The Storyteller (No Strings Theatre).
|
Kevin Hammond - CHEINY / REEDE / MAYOR
Kevin is an actor/director, based in Toronto, where he has been the Artistic Director for both Humber River Shakespeare and Shakespeare in the Rough. He has directed or performed in over 30 Shakespeare productions. Guest director credits include Othello and Hamlet for the Arabian Shakespeare Festival (San Francisco), Richard II for Perspective Theatre (San Jose) and The Taming of the Shrew for the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company. Kevin is also a member of the Michael Langham Workshop for Classical Direction at the Stratford Festival where he spent two seasons as an Assistant Director. While there he also directed workshop productions of Double Falsehood and an original Shakespeare mash-up entitled A Most Unnoble Swerving. Since the pandemic he has been the Development Manager for The Actors’ Fund of Canada and proud puppy dad to Zoe.
|
Ngabo Nabea - BLACK WILL
Though born in Toronto, Ngabo Nabea spent much of his childhood travelling and studying abroad, before returning to study performance at Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson University). Upon graduating, he has performed across the country, including Leads in Twisted at the Factory Theatre (2015), The Postman by Appledore Productions for the Pan Am Games (2015), The Number's Game at Storefront Theatre (2016), I and You at the Globe Theatre (2018), Fences at the Grand Theatre (2019) and Death and the King's Horseman at the Stratford Festival (2022). This will be his second production working with Shakespeare BASH’d, having performed in their production of King Lear (2023) as Edgar. Socials: @_nguapo
|
Mike Shara - ARDEN
10 seasons at Stratford; 10 seasons at Shaw; performances for Soulpepper, MTC, Canadian Stage, Tarragon, Crow's Theatre, Theatre Calgary, Citadel Theatre, Vancouver Playhouse, National Arts Centre, Mirvish, Theatre Aquarius, Drayton Entertainment. Recent film/TV : Orphan Black, Murdoch Mysteries, Defining Moments, The Pradeeps of Pittsburgh, Nesting.
|
Carson Somanlall - BRADSAW / FOWLE
Carson is an actor and multidisciplinary artist, holding a BFA from Toronto Metropolitan University. They truly cherish their experience working with director James Wallis, on George Bernard Shaw's "Pygmalion" at TMU, and they are excited to have an opportunity to collaborate on a project with Shakespeare Bash’d for the first time! Carson enjoys sharing their visual art on Instagram and TikTok (@mongo.draws), and they continue to take every opportunity to work with other passionate artists in the world of theatre. Carson would like to thank James and Julia for creating this opportunity, and for being all-around awesome human beings, and finally, thank YOU for being here!
|
Carling Tedesco - SHAKEBAG |
John Wamsley - MOSBY |
Carling’s recent acting credits include Suddenly Last Summer (Riot King), Emilie: La Marquise du Chatelet Defends Her Life Tonight (The Flare), and Romeo and Juliet (Sunbeam Theatre Company). As director: Little Women, Marat/Sade, The Russian Play. She is a graduate of Randolph College and McGill University.
|
John Wamsley is a Toronto-based actor, theatre creator and graduate of the Theatre and Drama Studies program at Sheridan College and the University of Toronto. Recent credits include Richard II, Grand Magic, Love's Labour's Lost, and 1939 (Stratford Festival), A Midsummer Night's Dream (Shakespeare BASH'd), and Timothy Findley's The Wars (Grand Theatre). You can also catch John in Revenge of the Black Best Friend on CBC Gem and in the hilarious short film Save the Date, written by Andrew Di Rosa. For more, go to www.johnwamsley.ca or Instagram @wamsley.
|
Ben Yoganathan - GREENE
Ben Yoganathan is an actor, writer and art maker born in Sri Lanka and now based out of Toronto. He holds a BFA in performance from Toronto Metropolitan (Ryerson) University. He is thrilled to be working with Shakespeare BASH’d again!
Recent credits include: HEART/BODY (TO Live), King Lear (Shakespeare Bash'd), King Henry Five (Driftwood Theatre), Three Sisters (The Howland Company), Killing Time (Mixtape Projects). |
Don't miss the full 2023/24 season. Read the season announcement here and read about how to get involed!
|