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A B O U T
Theatre Smith Gilmour
Our Mission
Theatre Smith-Gilmour (TSG) is an artistically driven, professional theatre company committed to creating theatre that gives expression to people’s imaginations. We strive to be inclusive and are committed to creating a theatre that reflects the diversity of the community we live in. We communicate stories of universal meaning reflecting ephemeral moments from the chaos of life. Our mission is to provide the space, opportunity and support for the dissemination of an artistic vision developed by Michele Smith and Dean Gilmour in collaboration with a group of colleagues who are diverse. TSG creates a theatre of actions and images, through productions, play development, emerging artists workshops and residencies. We believe that the purpose of art is to make people more fragile, more tender and more tolerant.
Our History
Dean Gilmour and Michele Smith founded Theatre Smith-Gilmour in 1980 after meeting at the School of Jacques Lecoq in Paris, France in 1978. Since 1980 we’ve created 44 shows, 15 of which are original plays. We’ve toured across Canada several times and to 14 countries around the world.
From 1988 to 1994 Theatre Smith-Gilmour co-managed the Poor Alex Theatre in Toronto.
From 2000-2007 Chekhov’s Shorts
played a total of 22 sold-out weeks with rave reviews at the Factory Theatre in Toronto. It toured throughout Ontario; to the Firehall Arts Centre in Vancouver; Workshop West in Edmonton; the Hong Kong Cultural Arts Centre; Eastern Front Theatre in Dartmouth; the Saidye Bronfman Arts Centre in Montreal; the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre; the National Theatre of China, Beijing and the Chekhov International Theatre Festival in Moscow, Russian.
Part II of their Chekhov Cycle, Chekhov’s Longs…In The Ravine
enjoyed a virtually sold-out run at Toronto’s Factory Theatre in February 2002 and was presented at Carrefour International Theatre Festival in Quebec City, The Magnetic North Theatre Festival in Ottawa, the Festival des Ameriques in Montreal, the Yukon Arts Centre in Whitehorse, the RCA/Artistic Fraud Theatre in St. John's, Newfoundland, the Chiang Kei Sheik International Theatre Festival in Taipei, Taiwan, the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre and the Chinese National Theatre in Beijing. Chekhov's Shorts
and Longs
were nominated for a total of 14 Dora Mavor Moore Awards and won 7.
From 2007-2011 we created and toured Lu Xun Blossoms, our adaptation of short stories from the great Chinese writer Lu Xun. The first ever Sino-Canadian theatrical co-production between TSG and the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre. In 2007 we traveled to Shanghai to begin working on the show with three actors from the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre and three actors from Canada. Lu Xun Blossoms
premiered in Shanghai and toured to Beijing, Hong Kong, Guangzhou and Macau, China and in Toronto, Canada at the Luminato Festival.
In 2008 we created the critically acclaimed Katherine Mansfield, in 2009 we collaborated with Ravi Jain and Adam Paolozza on SPENT which won a Dora Mavor Moore Award for Best Performance by an Ensemble. In 2009-2010 we created two adaptations of the Brothers Grimm fairytales: Grimm with the graduating class at Humber College in 2009 and Grimm too in association with Factory Theatre in 2010.
From 2012-2017 Theatre Smith-Gilmour created the critically acclaimed adaptation of William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying. Our adaptation toured to the National Arts Centre, Oakville Centre for the Arts, Calgary’s High Performance Rodeo and The Arts Club Theatre in Vancouver and was nominated for 4 Dora Mavor Moore Awards (winning 1).
In 2018 we premiered our adaptation of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables
at the Theatre Centre. The show garnered rave reviews from critics and members of the audience alike.
In 2019 we began the creation of an adaptation of Ovid's Metamorphoses. During the pandemic, unable to perform live we continued our work adapting new stories from Metamorphoses and creating 3 short films with Juniper Island Productions (Daedalus & Icarus; Orpheus & Eurydice; Eryschithon) and 1 with videographer Lyon Smith (Hercules). After the pandemic we premiered Metamorphoses 2023 when it was invited to be part of the Crow's Theatre 2022/23 Season. It played from March 21 to April 9, 2023. Now we are developing a new show called Pu Songling: Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio
with a group of Asian-Canadian actors.
This year marks Theatre Smith-Gilmour's 44th anniversary, that’s 44 beautiful years of creation! We thank you for all your support and look forward to the coming years of more creation and exploration.
10 wins & 42 nominations
Dora Awards
2
Sterling nominations in Edmonton
2
Chalmers’ Best Canadian Play Award nominations for The Greenbird and Chekhov’s shorts
Best Ensemble
Montreal English Critics Award
The Team
Michele Smith
Co-Artistic Director
Michele received her Master’s Degree in French Literature from the University of Aix-en-Provence in 1975 and studied at L’Ecole Jacques Lecoq in Paris, France from 1976-78. Over the last 40 years, as co-artistic director, she has created, directed, produced and performed in 44 productions in Toronto and has toured 11 countries around the world. Michele won 7 Dora Mavor Moore awards for her work on Chekhov’s Shorts and Chekhov's Longs. She is proud of her 10 years of teaching acting at Humber College.
Dean Gilmour
Co-Artistic Director
Dean graduated from the University of Windsor with an Honours BFA degree in Dramatic Arts in 1976 and immediately traveled to Paris, France to attend the School of Jacques Lecoq. He has created, directed, and performed in 42 Theatre Smith-Gilmour productions and has performed his work in Toronto, across Canada and in 11 countries around the world. Dean has received 2 Dora Awards for best director, 2 for best actor, 2 for best production, and 1 for best new play for his work as actor, writer, and director in Chekhov Shorts and Chekhov Longs...In the Ravine.
Adriano Sobretodo Jr
General Manager
Adriano holds an undergraduate degree from Queen`s University and MFA in Acting from York University. He's been GM for TSG since 2015 and oversees all administrative aspects including finances, human resources, fundraising, board relations, and communications, as well as Producer for all productions. He has worked in arts management with several companies including Head Grant Writer at STAF, Sky Gilbert's Cabaret Company, Driftwood Theatre, and Storytellers of Canada. He is the current Co-Artistic Director of Litmus Theatre and Theatre Amihan. In his spare time, he also works as an actor.
Nina Gilmour
Marketing/ Fundraising
Nina Gilmour is a Toronto based writer, producer and marketing content creator She has worked closely with Theatre Smith-Gilmour as a close collaborator and mentee. She has helped with the writing and performed in their adaptations of William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying and Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables. In 2018 she wrote her first short film screenplay Massacre of the Innocents (a.k.a. Coucou). She played the lead in Valerie Buhagiar’s feature, It’s Hard To Be Human. She now works with Juniper Island Productions as co-director of marketing, where she oversees content creation, video production and social media management.
Board of Directors
Every member of our board of directors is a thought leader who has made significant contributions to our society.
Each one brings a unique set of skills and expertise to our organization.
Divya Shahani (Former Chair)
Divya has been a practising entertainment lawyer since 2014. She has also executive produced various productions, and accordingly, her legal advice to her entertainment clients is informed by industry knowledge, business strategy and pragmatism. Prior to joining Wildeboer Dellelce, Divya practised at a prominent entertainment boutique firm and a full-service national firm. Divya is bilingual and practices law in English and French.
Sheila Hockin
Sheila is Executive Producer on The Handmaid’s Tale (winner of the 2017 Emmy’s, Golden Globe’s and Producers’ Guild Awards for Best Series), Executive Producer on Vikings: Valhalla, and Producer on Halo. She recently completed a season of the political thriller Condor, based on the feature film Three Days of the Condor, and the final season of the post-apocalyptic drama Into the Badlands. In addition, Hockin has served as Executive Producer on Vikings, Neil Jordan’s The Borgias, Michael Hirst’s The Tudors, and Co-Executive Producer on John Logan’s Penny Dreadful. Hockin also produced five seasons of the ground-breaking Showtime series Queer as Folk. She has been honoured with an Emmy, Golden Globe, Critics’ Choice Award, Producers’ Guild Award, and many Canadian Screen Awards. She has received the WiFT (Women in Film and Television) Award of Distinction and the Banff World Media Festival Award of Distinction, for her work advancing the Canadian industry.
John Wunderlich
John Wunderlich has been a member of the TSG board for 13 years, including a stint as chair. Despite, or perhaps because of, his long career in technology he is also actively engaged with the arts community. He brings his tech back ground and his active engagement in international standards for personal data to the board, helping to ensure that our supporters’ privacy is protected. John is also a board member of MyData Global and the SickKids Research Ethics Board. He is the vice chair of the IEEE P7002 Working Group on Data Privacy Process and Vice Chair of the Kantara Initiative Information Sharing Work Group.
Chris Reed
Chris Reed is a founding partner at Laishley Reed LLP. He has practised commercial litigation for over twenty-five years. He provides practical, precise, and effective representation both on the merits of legal disputes and on the best way to navigate the litigation maze. Clients value his excellent written materials, persuasive arguments, and focus on cost-effective final results. He possesses an outstanding reputation with the bench.
Keisha Chotoosingh
Keisha Chotoosingh is a Chartered Professional Accountant and operates her sole proprietorship supporting small businesses with their finance and accounting needs. She helps small business owners develop financial tools to allow for informed strategic decision making and create efficiencies in their work flow. Keisha is passionate about social justice and has used her skills to do extensive work in the charitable and not for profit sector, helping to achieve efficiency through improvement on workflow process and creating financial tools for management. Keisha’s experience includes, financial planning and analysis, finance and audit committees and being the key person in support of not for profit board.
Andre De Pape
Andre is a 15 year marketing professional having helped build the marketing profile of influential brands like Red Bull, Drake Hotel, and Cineplex across Canada and the United States. Specializing in developing cultural marketing initiatives, his work has created opportunities in the art and music community and engaged millions of fans. Most recently Andre is currently leading brand and marketing within the biomedical space.
Sandy Kybartas
A trained architect, Sandra Kybartas has designed a wide range of projects from industrial building parts to movies including LILIES, for which she won a Genie Award for Best Production Design, numerous television series including MURD OCH MYSTERIES for CBC; THE STATE WITHIN for the BBC; ReGENESIS for which she won two Directors Guild of Canada Awards; and the Gemini winning This Is Wonderland for CBC. Sandra was also the production designer on the Emmy Award-winning Matthew Shepard Story, Pentagon Papers and Sins of The Father for HBO. In New York city, she was a member of the design team for Broadway’s Le CAGE AUX FOLLES, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton’s PRIVATE LIVES; and George Balanchine’s MAGIC FLUTE at the Lincoln Center.
She also won a Genie Award, Golden Spire in San Francisco, and a Creteil Festival audience award as director of her own short film, The HOME FOR BLIND WOMEN.
Nina Gilmour
Nina Gilmour is a Toronto based writer, producer and marketing cont ent creator. She has worked with Theatre Smith-Gilmour as a collaborator and mentee. She has helped with the writing and performed in their adaptations of William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying and Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables. In 2018 she wrote her first short film screenplay Massacre of the Innocents (a.k.a. Coucou). She played the lead in Valerie Buhagiar’s feature, It’s Hard To Be Human. She now works with Juniper Island Productions as co-director of marketing, where she oversees content creation, video production and social media management.