Stage Management Mentorship
The goal of the mentorship is for young stage managers to practice their communication and leadership skills through a real production setting. The role of a stage manager is to handle all logistics of a theatre productions. Mentees will work with a professional stage manager to create show paperwork and a prompt book. This can be brought to other productions they work on, and will in turn prepare them to work on longer a variety of different live productions.
Stage Managers
Emily Mallett (she/her)
Emily is a recent graduate of Carleton University and now works in the IT field. She has been lucky enough to be Stage Manager a few times over the past few years and has stage managed shows such as "The Hunchback of Notre Dame", "Title of Show" and " All in the Timing. Audiences will have last seen Emily on stage ( or more accurately on camera) in Twelve Hundred, a play presented at YIF 2020.
Kennedy Fiorella (she/her)
Kennedy is an undergraduate student in her final year of Honours Political Science with a Minor in Theatre at the University of Ottawa. Kennedy has been involved in the theatre community both on-campus and off, working as a stage manager and cast member in University of Ottawa theatre productions as well as a volunteer theatre reviewer for Capital Critics Circle. Kennedy is passionate about getting involved in her local community and building inclusive spaces for all. When she is not seeing a theatrical production, Kennedy can be found volunteering with Girl Guides of Canada, reading one of her many unread books on her shelves, or exploring all that Ottawa has to offer.
Lexie Tait (she/her)
Lexie is a third year Bachelor of Theatre Arts and French Immersion student at the University of Ottawa. Her greatest passions are theatre, hockey, reading and writing. She has worked with Highlands Summer Festival in her hometown of Haliburton, Ontario and Lindsay Little Theatre in Lindsay, Ontario. Lexie enjoys acting as a hobby but her goal after graduation is to be a stage manager for a theatre company. She has acted in shows such as Mamma Mia, Sweeney Todd, Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King and The Little Mermaid. Lexie also has staged managed shows such as The Dining Room and Clue. Theatre has become her life.
Rhea Sawan (she/her)
Rhea graduated from High School with a French Baccalaureate in Lebanon and continued her studies in Theatre at University of Ottawa. She's 19 years old and is a first year student. She moved two months ago to Canada in order to expand her artistic knowledge whether it's in her studies or her off-campus experience. She worked as a Piano Teacher for two years, a Dance Teacher on Zoom for a year and a Physics Tutor for two months. During her studies at school, she worked for some certficates like the PSMUN, the Y.E.T by Thomas Gordon, the Cambridge You'g Learners English (YLE) Flyerd and an "Attestation de Mediation" From University of Saint Joseph Beirut. She is trilingual (Arabic-English-French) and is perfectly fluent in all 3 languages (Spoken, read and written).
Seth Thomson (he/him)
Seth is an Ottawa-based developer and theatre artist. He enjoys making art with his friends. Recent credits include Be/Loved at Fresh Meat 2021 as well as Stevie Nicks is My Girlfriend at the 2020 Youth Infringement Festival.
Tamara LaPlante (she/her)
Tamara is a person always on the move. In the before times, she was always seeking out new places to visit, but in the last two years, she has scoured the Ottawa region to uncover all its hidden gems. She thinks the best way to learn is from storytelling and immersion, in whatever form she can get her hands on: from books, movies, paintings, and of course from theatre.
Mentor
Lydia Talajic (she/her/elle)
Lydia is a Franco-Ontarienne stage manager, an Algonquin College graduate (Theatre Arts, 2016) and a University of Ottawa graduate (B.A. with major in Theatre, 2019). She has been involved with YIF since the start of her career in 2015, and her work has taken her across Canada. She is the Festival SM for Fresh Meat in Ottawa, and is the Board President of the Prix Rideau Awards. Some recent virtual SMing credits include: Being Coloured/ful in a Black and White World (underCurrents), Beowulf in Afghanistan and Me, Vivien Leigh and the Roller Rink at the Ottawa Storytellers.