Devon Healey
Devon Healey is an Assistant Professor of Disability Studies at OISE, University of Toronto. All of her work is grounded in her experience as a Blind woman guided by a desire to show how Blindness, specifically, and disability, more broadly, can be understood as offering an alternate form of perception and is thus, a valuable and creative way of experiencing and knowing the world. She is the author of Dramatizing Blindness: Disability Studies as Critical Creative Narrative. Situated within her work in disability studies, theatre and performance studies, Devon has developed Immersive Descriptive Audio (IDA), an artistic practice that, through Blindness, understands accessibility as an integral part of the creative process and theatrical experience. Devon is an award-winning actor and the co-founder of Peripheral Theatre. With her long-time collaborator, choreographer Robert Binet, Devon’s work in Blind perception has been featured at The Royal Ballet and the Queensland Ballet.
Nate Bitton
Nate Bitton is a visually impaired, award-winning fight director, stage combat instructor, performer, director and occasional stunt man. He is a graduate of the University of Toronto Mississauga/Sheridan College Theatre and Drama Studies programme and is a certified fight director and instructor with Fight Directors Canada. Nate’s work explores and engages storytelling through movement and staged violence guided by a commitment to creating safe and supportive environments in which performers can flourish. Some credits include, as fight director, Sweeny Todd (Talk is Free Theatre – Dora Mavor Moore Award winner “Outstanding Production: Musical, 2022”), Twelfth Night, Hamlet and Comedy of Errors (Shakespeare Bash’d) and Rocky Horror Show, Heathers, Hamlet and Jesus Christ Superstar (Hart House Theatre). As a performer, his work includes Soldier in Macbeth (Canadian Opera Company – upcoming), Badass Stormtooper/Stunts in Star Wars Battlefront II: Rivals (EA), Laertes in Hamlet, Romeo/Iago in Goodnight Desdemona/Good Morning Juliet and Jamie in Bone Cage (Hart House Theatre).
Mitchell Cushman
Mitchell Cushman is a director, creator and founding Artistic Director of Outside the March, one of Canada’s leading immersive theatre companies. Past Outside the March productions include No Save Points, Trojan Girls & The Outhouse of Atreus, The Ex-Boyfriend Yard Sale, Lessons in Temperament, The Flick, The Tape Escape, Dr. Silver, Jerusalem, TomorrowLove, Mr. Burns, Vitals, Passion Play, Terminus and Mr. Marmalade. His work has been seen on such stages as Stratford Festival and The Royal Alexandra Theatre, in spaces as intimate as kindergarten classrooms and living rooms, and in locales as far-flung as London, New York, Argentina, Edinburgh, Munich, Finland and Japan. Mitchell has been the recipient of the Siminovitch Protégé Award, two Dora Mavor Moore Awards for Outstanding Direction, his shows have received four Dora Awards for Outstanding Production and 14 Toronto Theatre Critics’ Awards.
Robert Binet
Robert Binet is a choreographer, curator and leader and has created works for The National Ballet of Canada, The Royal Ballet, New York City Ballet and more. Dark with Excessive Bright, Binet’s recent creation for The Royal Ballet and the National Ballet, was hailed as “intoxicating” by The Times. He previously collaborated with Outside the March on TomorrowLove in 2017.
Rob is Artistic Director and Co-CEO of Fall for Dance North Festival and prior to this served as Choreographic Associate and Director of Artist Development Programmes for The National Ballet of Canada. In 2023, Rob was the Choreographic Mentor at the Venice Biennale College Danza and guest curator for the Dance: Made in Canada festival. In the same year, Rob received the Sandra Faire Next Generation Award from Dance Collection Danse, awarded to an individual under 40 who is making a significant impact on dance in Canada.
