ABOUT US

Gaëtan L. Charlebois (Publisher) is an award-winning playwright whose works have been performed across the country on radio and television as well as in Great Britain and the United States. His short stories and articles have been published in magazines in Canada and the US. He is also the creator of canadiantheatre.com, one of the most comprehensive resources on Canadian Theatre available. For the last two decades he has worked as a theatre critic and pop-culture commentator for The Montreal Mirror, Attitude, Hour and The Gazette.

Estelle Rosen (Editor-in-chief) has been active in the fields of arts administration and media relations for many years. She has been a feature contributor to CBC Radio One, and RCI among others. Producer of live spoken word events, theatre productions and Upstage: Theatre on Radio on CKUT 90.3FM

Valerie Cardinal (Senior Editor - Sunday Features) fell in love with Montreal’s theatre scene after two weeks of intensive volunteering for the Fringe Festival last summer. She is in her last semester of her bachelor’s degree in journalism at Concordia University and is the arts editor of The Concordian. Her theatrical breakthrough was at the age of ten, when she had to pretend to be drunk in a school play, much to the delight of her classmates. She loves sharing her passion for theatre and will talk your ear off about it if you’re not careful. 

Jessica Wei (Senior Editor/Friday Five) is a not particularly good actor, despite her almost accidental foray into theatre. Her experience includes, most notably, touring China performing A Midsummer Night's Dream, and stage managing a well-reviewed Toronto Fringe show. When she is not in a theatre (which is, incidentally, most of the time), she is, among other things, finishing her journalism degree at Concordia University and dreading a future of unemployment. She writes snarky columns and complains about society, if only because she will only be this young and this cool for so long.

David Allan King (Editor) is a freelance arts, culture and travel writer as well as the Artistic Director of Montreal's OUT Productions. A specialist in queer performing arts and culture, the writer, director and instructor received his BFA in Theatre Performance at Montreal's Concordia University and an MFA in Directing from Edmonton's University of Alberta.

Amy Barratt (Senior Contributor) Raised by parents who dragged her to plays and rehearsals the way some parents drag their kids to church, Amy grew up with a head full of monologues and songs but precious few marketable skills. That’s how she ended up writing theatre reviews for the Mirror for 10 years. In 2008 she bid adieu to the scribbler’s trade and earned her real estate license. Amy is pleased to be making decent money at last, but does miss the theatrefolk. She is thankful to CharPo for the opportunity to keep her hand in as a reviewer.

Richard Burnett (Senior Contributor) is Editor-at-Large of the Montreal alt-weekly HOUR magazine, one of the original organizers of Montreal's Divers/Cite Festival, founding president of the Montreal NLGJA chapter and since 1996 author of Three Dollar Bill, Canada's first and still only gay syndicated column, about gay life across Canada and the world. Bugs is also a columnist for Fugues magazine and Xtra.

Emilie Charlebois (Senior Contributor) is a Montrealer born and raised. Although a new contributor, she has been a member of the Charlebois Post family for a long time, and as a result is genetically predisposed to snarkiness and sarcasm. She enjoys laughing until it hurts, elaborate high-fives and astounding her friends with her seemingly limitless knowledge of pop culture minutiae. In her spare time she routinely attempts to ween herself off of coffee, chocolate, crossword and TV addictions. She hopes that starting an MA in Media and Communications this fall will help.

Sarah Deshaies (Senior Contributor) once played a dinosaur onstage in kindergarten, and was a tree in another show, and has really, really liked the stage ever since. She is currently Editor-in-chief at the Concordian newspaper at Concordia University, where she is pursuing a bachelor's degree in journalism. Sarah is a regular contributor to CKUT's theatre show Upstage. She is also a sometimes producer at CJAD, and co-produces the children's show Anything Goes at CKUT. Follow her tweets @sarahdeshaies

joel fishbane (Senior Contributor) is a freelance writer, actor and director. His fiction has been seen in several literary journals, some of them more obscure then others. His plays have been finalists in several contests and festivals including the Toronto Fringe New Play Contest and the Samuel French New Canadian Play Contest. He has a diabetic cat and sometimes plays the clarinet. Visit him at him on the net here or read his musings on literature.

Barbara Ford (Columnist, Ford's Focus; Senior Contributor) has been involved with the performing arts in one way or another for most of her life, first on stage as a professional dancer/choreographer and latterly behind the scenes in marketing and communications.  She’s had the great privilege of meeting and working with many talented artists in various capacities for companies large and small including Centaur Theatre, the Segal Centre, the National Film Board of Canada, CBC Television and Just for Laughs as well as a large number of local indie theatre companies.  She loves sharing her passion for the arts with anyone who will listen and takes great pleasure in finding innovative ways to connect creative people to watch the magic happen!

Patrick Goddard (Senior Contributor) is the General Manager of MainLine Theatre and the Montreal Fringe and President of the Quebec Drama Federation. He is also an actor, writer, and singer. He co-wrote Johnny Canuck and the Last Burlesque and The Mid-Life Crisis of Dionysus. He has won 2 MECCAs for Distinction (with partner-in-crime Jeremy Hechtman). He has a BFA from Concordia and also studied with One Yellow Rabbit, Mime Omnibus, and Philippe Gaulier. He is learning to love seafood.

Elizabeth Johnston (Senior Contributor) is a freelance writer living in Montreal. She was awarded a Canada Council grant to write No Small Potatoes: More than meets the eye, a book that combines travel writing and food security issues. Her work has appeared in various publications for over 20 years including The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, and the anthology, A Room at the Heart of Things. When she's not writing, Elizabeth teaches writing as a freelancer and at Concordia University. Two of her favourite quotes are from Samuel Beckett and E. M. Forster, "Fail better," and "Only connect."

Anna Papadakos (Senior Contributor) is a Montreal theatre artist. Her works as writer, director and performer have been presented locally, nationally and internationally. Anna’s multidisciplinary plays both as an individual artist, collaborator and with the theatre company she co-founded and was Artistic Director of span the course of two decades. She is recognized for crossing the spectrum of various medias, her highly visual approach, expressionistic language and site-specific theatre. Presently, Anna is working on a play for the not too distant future and her third consecutive La Nuit Blanches piece.

Rachel Zuroff (Senior Contributor) is a third year philosophy student at McGill University.  She has loved theatre ever since her role as 1st mouse in her maternelle’s production of, well, a mouse-related play. She is thrilled at the opportunity offered by CharPo to explore English Montreal Theatre. Sometimes there doesn’t seem to be enough time to see all the wonderful productions staged in this beautiful city!  But she’s looking forward to doing her best.

Contributors:

Liesl Barrell, Kate Bligh, Macrae Campbell, Martha Chaves, Stacey Christodoulou, Andrew Cuk, Keir Cutler, David di Giovanni, Anna Fuerstenberg, Steve Galluccio, Kevun Kibbey, Bruce McKay, Anthony Palermo, Kirsten Rasmussen, Mark Rolland, Crystle Reid, Gabrielle Soskin, François Vincent, Bryan Walsh, Jessica Wei, Jacob Wren