Donna-Michelle St. Bernard, a.k.a. Belladonna the Blest, is an emcee, playwright, agitator, and practitioner of humanitarian arts. Her main body of work, the 54ology, includes Cake, Sound of the Beast, A Man A Fish, Salome’s Clothes, Gas Girls, Give It Up, The Smell of Horses, Bilguisa Speaks Up, Diggers, Conjugal, Hunt/Peck, and The First Stone. She is a contributor to The Only Good Indian (Jiv Parasram, Tom Arthur Davis/Pandemic Theatre), Forbidden (Afarin Mansouri/Tapestry Opera), and Oubliette (Ivan Barbotin/Tapestry Opera). Other theatre works include Reaching for Starlight, They Say He Fell, and The Final Inquiry. She is co-editor with Yvette Nolan of Refractions: Solo (2014) and Refractions: Scenes (2020) and editor of Indian Act: Residential School Plays (2018), all published with Playwrights Canada Press.

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Mike Payette is an award-winning director, educator, and actor who has appeared with some of Canada’s finest theatres, including the Citadel, Vertigo, Banff Centre, Segal Centre, Centaur, the Grand, Factory, Neptune, and the National Arts Centre. A frequent guest artist at the National Theatre School of Canada, some of his memorable works as a director include Harlem Duet (Black Theatre Workshop), Hosanna (Tableau D’Hôte Theatre / Centaur), Around the World in 80 Days and Reaching for Starlight (Geordie Theatre), the Canadian premiere of Tarell Alvin McCraney’s Choir Boy (Centaur, later with Canadian Stage / Arts Club), Cockroach (Tarragon), Sensitivity (Obsidian Theatre / CBC Gem, as part of 21 Black Futures), the Quebec premiere of Héritage (A Raisin in the Sun) (Théâtre Duceppe), along with national tours of The Tashme Project (Tashme Prod / Centaur / Factory / Firehall) and Lorena Gale’s Angélique (Black Theatre Workshop / Tableau D’Hôte / National Arts Centre / Factory / Obsidian). He was the co-founding artistic director of Tableau D’Hôte Theatre, past assistant artistic director for Black Theatre Workshop, and was the artistic and executive director of Geordie Theatre before becoming artistic director of Tarragon Theatre in Toronto, where he now resides.

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“Reaching for Starlight is a powerful reminder of the ways in which young people are capable of so much revolutionary work; how they are motivated to face adversity, stand together, and advocate for genuine, lasting change.”

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