Spotlight: Maev Beaty

“I’ve really realized that those minutes that I spend on stage are minutes of my life,” says Beaty. “We’re not up there to present good, clean work — we’re up there to try and catch some truth for the listener that is shared in real time. You can’t do that if you’re just presenting your good homework; you have to live.”

Spotlight: Yvette Nolan

“I don’t believe in this world. I don’t see how we can pull ourselves back from the brink. Human beings are greedy, and not mindful, and the only way I can think about making the world better is by getting rid of a lot of it.”

Spotlight: Seana McKenna

The recipient of an Order of Canada and winner of a clutch of theatre awards — not to mention a mountain of critical bouquets — during her four decades onstage, Seana McKenna is routinely referred to as one of the country’s finest actors. But she refuses to coast on her reputation.

Spotlight: Soheil Parsa

In a life already full of fascinating chapters, Soheil Parsa has turned another page. Early this summer, Parsa stepped down as co-artistic director of Modern Times, the theatre company he co-founded three decades ago with Peter Farbridge. The “dream” now for Parsa, as he characterizes it, is to work as a freelance director, liberated from fundraising and administrative responsibilities.

Spotlight: Ellie Moon

“What I see in her writing is a tremendous amount of character detail and an ability to create characters that contain contradictions, who are very much sitting inside the oppositions that exist within them. That to me is a real sign of a great writer, like a Chekhov.”

Spotlight: Jani Lauzon

Had things gone differently with Soulpepper’s programming, another production entirely might have been in its place this season. And, had things gone differently in Jani’s early years as an artist, she might not have grown into the fierce matriarch of Indigenous theatre that she is.