Creative Team

Jenna Brown (she/her) is thrilled to be joining St. Lawrence Shakespeare Festival’s 2026 season as an Apprentice Stage Manager. She is a Métis artsworker who wears a few hats in the theatre world, including stage managing, performing, front of house, as well as any other arts-related odd jobs she can find. Some of her favourite past stage credits include Legally Blonde (Randolph College, Stage Manager), Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Falsettos (Bowtie Productions, Assistant Stage Manager). Jenna would like to send her deep gratitude to her friends, family, partner, and all local coffee shops for their never ending support and love.

Hannah Ferguson (she/her) is a designer, artist, and writer working in Ottawa and Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal. This is her third year working with the St. Lawrence Shakespeare Festival, having designed costumes for 2024’s The Tempest and She Stoops to Conquer and 2025’s Much Ado About Nothing and Sherlock Holmes and the Vanishing Hour. Other recent costume design credits include Shorelines (2023), for which she won a Prix Rideau Award for Outstanding Design, and Exciting Cause (2023), both presented by TACTICS. A graduate of Concordia University (BFA ’22), she is a Technician at FOFA Gallery and often collaborates with them on sustainability programming. She has completed artist residencies at Artscape Gibraltar Point, Cyber Love Hotel, and the Icelandic Textile Centre. Her writing has been published by The Jarislowsky Institute for Studies in Canadian Art, Needlebound, In the Mood Magazine, The Pit, and Offscreen.

Cassidy Gallant lives in London, Ontario and has been stage managing since high school. She is thrilled to be back for her third summer in Prescott and to help create some theatre magic with incredible artists. Some favourite projects she has had the opportunity to work on:  Dracula: The Bloody Truth (Western Canada Theatre, Theatre Northwest); Private Lives (Stratford Festival); The Monument (Factory Theatre); The Assembly (Crossroads Theatre);  Much Ado About Nothing, Sherlock Holmes and The Vanishing Hour (St. Lawrence Shakespeare Festival); Billy Goats Gruff and Other Tales (Mermaid Theatre).

Joey is ecstatic to be back with the St. Lawrence Shakespeare Festival for his third season. He always loves to return home to the 1000 Islands region where he began performing over 25 years ago. Since then, he has worked internationally as a performer, director and educator. Most recently, he was the musical director of Jersey Boys with Tweed & Co for which he won a BroadwayWorld Award for Best Musical Direction.  He has sung backup for Josh Groban and Sarah Brightman on numerous occasions and his favourite performance credits include Baloo in Jungle Book Circus (Tour), Cinderella’s Prince in Into the Woods and Alex in The Girl In the Frame (Canadian premiere). He is the proud co-owner and co-Artistic Director of ARTSies Inc. Love and gratitude to Jarret, Mom, Lydia, Jordan, Allie, Tully, Erik and my entire family for encouraging me to follow my dreams. Thank you to the deBruyn’s for their hospitality and to James, Julia and Cara for making this dream come true. This one is dedicated to Anne Landon.

Julia (she/her) is a director, Dora-nominated actor, educator, and producer, as well as Co-Artistic Director of both the St. Lawrence Shakespeare Festival and Toronto’s Shakespeare BASH’d.  As a director, Julia has worked across Ontario, including four seasons at the Stratford Festival. Selected directing credits: The Merchant of Venice (multiple top ten lists for 2025), Cymbeline, Richard III, The Comedy of Errors (Shakespeare BASH’d), Much Ado About Nothing, She Stoops to Conquer, Play On! (St. Lawrence Shakespeare Festival), Romeo and Juliet (George Brown Theatre School), Play On! A Shakespeare-Inspired Mixtape (Stratford Festival), Romeo & Juliet (YES/STC), 3Tempests (Shakespeare In Action), The Duchess of Malfi, The Revenger’s Tragedy (Co-Director, Toronto Metropolitan University), The Tom & Gertie Letters Project (Co-Director, SpringWorks), Modern Love (Co-Creator, Canadian Stage). Julia has worked as the Managing Director of Common Boots Theatre and served as a producing mentor with the Toronto Fringe Festival. She is a graduate of the joint acting program at UofT and Sheridan College.

Matt Nish-Lapidus is an artist and musician based in Tkaronto/Toronto. Matt’s varied practice probes the myth that computers should be useful rather than beautiful through examining contemporary technoculture, its histories, and its impacts on society, people, and his own life. His work results in diverse outputs including publications, recordings, installations, performances, software, and objects. Matt has performed and exhibited locally and internationally including MOCA (Toronto), The Power Plant (Toronto), INDEX Biennial (Braga), ACUD Macht Neu (Berlin), Electric Eclectics (Meaford), InterAccess (Toronto), ZKM (Karlsruhe), and more, including many DIY community spaces. He holds a H.BFA in New Media from Toronto Metropolitan University and a Master of Visual Studies in Studio Art from The University of Toronto. You can find Matt online and away-from-keyboard under various aliases and collaborations including emenel, New Tendencies, and <blink>.

Breanne is an actor, producer, writer, movement choreographer, and intimacy coordinator. Her goal is to be a theatrical swiss army knife – useful in most situations. Previous SLSF credits: The Tempest, Much Ado About Nothing, Sherlock Holmes and the Vanishing Hour, She Stoops to Conquer. She has worked with companies including Shakespeare BASH’d, Soulpepper, YES Theatre, Theatre by the Bay, Theatre Direct, Crossroads Theatre, SpringWorks Festival, Theatre on the Ridge, and Eastern Front. Breanne is the co-creator and performer of the five time Dora nominated show, The Assembly, and the associate producer of CBC’s acclaimed PlayME podcast. www.breannetice.com

James (he/him) is a director, educator, actor, and the Co-Artistic Director of both the St. Lawrence Shakespeare Festival and Toronto’s Shakespeare BASH’d. He believes outdoor theatre is a Canadian birthright and relishes the opportunity to create magical theatre right on the St. Lawrence River with SLSF. For BASH’d, James has played the title roles in Hamlet, Richard III, Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew, and Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing. With BASH’d, James directed over a dozen productions and staged readings.  James spent four seasons at the Stratford Festival. He was a member of the Michael Langham Workshop for Classical Directing, assistant directing Macbeth, the world premiere of Bunny by Hannah Moscovitch, Romeo and Juliet, and Julius Caesar. Additionally, James worked with the Birmingham Conservatory and co-created and co-directed Play On! A Shakespeare Inspired Mixtape for the Festival’s 2021 season.  His other directing credits include: Sherlock Holmes and the Vanishing Hour, The Tempest (SLSF), As You Like It (Theatre by the Bay), Titus Andronicus (Hart House Theatre), Antony and Cleopatra (Secret Shakespeare Project), Scenes from The Tempest (Playing for Free), Henry IV Part 1 and 2 (Theatre Erindale), Romeo and Juliet and Joni (Workshop Production), Pygmalion, The Revenger’s Tragedy, The Duchess of Malfi (Toronto Metropolitan University), Romeo and Juliet (YES Theatre/Sudbury Theatre Centre), and Romeo and Juliet (George Brown Theatre School). James has been an instructor of classical, contemporary, and Shakespearean acting at Toronto Metropolitan University, U of T Mississauga, and Randolph College for the Performing Arts.

After 43 years in the Canadian Air Force as an Aircraft Engineering Officer where he served in many rolls, including managing aircraft maintenance and procurement, participating in United Nations operations, instructing in Canadian Forces schools he turned to his next love: designing, then building things. He convinced Susanne to build houses with him, then she convinced him to build stuff for the theatre with her.  Never one to turn down the chance to develop new skills and acquire new tools, he has happily taken on designing and constructing sets for SLSF.

Retired but never bored!  As producer of a fringe festival and Director of Development in a major Ottawa theatre Susanne has experienced theatre from the management side. Post retirement she, along with husband Peter, decided that designing and constructing their own home might be fun. So they did – and then project managed and mostly built a neighbour’s home just for good measure.  From there taking on set design, construction and the Production Management roles, along with a variety of volunteer tasks for SLSF puts their skills to good use.