THE CAST of TAKE RIMBAUD:
Thomas Mitchell Barnet
R
Thomas is an actor and musician based in Toronto. Most recently, he played Cuddy in Soulpepper’s production of Witch. He has also performed for Mirvish, The Stratford Festival, and The Citadel in Edmonton, as well as a handful of tv gigs here and there. In the future, he hopes to produce any of several unfinished one-person shows as well as record a second album.
Julian De Zotti
Paul
It’s been almost a decade since Julian has set foot on stage – last in Theatre Smith-Gilmour’s tour of AS I LAY DYING (Dora nomination). He is relieved his former mistress “the theatre” has opened her kimono for another one-night stand. Previous Buddies credits include Sky Gilbert’s AS YOU LIKE IT. He also moonlights in the film + TV world, having written & led four scripted TV series and a feature film that took him to SXSW and Canneseries; landed on CBC Gem, FuseTV, Amazon, and Vimeo; and won him a Canadian Screen Award.
Ruth Goodwin
Sylv
Ruth is a Toronto-based actor and co-founder of The Howland Company. Her screen credits include Global TV’s Private Eyes, Netflix’s Wedding Season, CBC’s Baroness Von Sketch Show, Workin’ Moms, Murdoch Mysteries, and more. Ruth has also spent the past decade creating and performing critically acclaimed stage work, earning a Toronto Theatre Critics Award and two Dora Award nominations. Select theatre credits include The Wolves (Crow’s Theatre & Howland), Heroes of the Fourth Turning (Crow’s & Howland), The Assembly (Porte Parole), and Entrances and Exits (Howland), which she co-created and for which she received a Canadian Comedy Award nomination.
Rose Tuong
Sapph
Rose slides around on the slick back of a turtle. Anagram of eros, duly sybaritic. Previously at Buddies: lulu v.7//aspects of a femme fatale & The Herald.
breton lalama
1
breton lalama is an award-winning writer, performer and filmmaker. The film he co-wrote and starred in, Really Happy Someday, is now available on Crave. As an actor, he’s worked with Talk Is Free Theatr, Young People’s Theatre, Canadian Stage, Bad Hats, Soulpepper, Neptune Theatre, The Royal Manitoba Theatre Center and more. FILM/TV includes: Be Better (Bell Fibe TV1); Law and Order: Toronto (CityTV), The Madness (Netflix), Y: The Last Man (FX/Hulu), Slasher (Shudder), Pretty Hard Cases (CBC/NBC), Let’s Go Bananas! (CBC Gem). His plays and screenplays include: LAST SHOW ON EARTH TRADEMARK SYMBOL! (Neptune Theatre premiere); SOMETHING FOR WHAT (in development); Really Happy Someday (also co-producer, TIFF 2024 premiere); when i was a boy i wasn’t (also director, self-produced, screened internationally), LUCKY BASTARDS (in development; Summerworks and Side Stream Festival). Breton is the co-founder of the Spindle Films Foundation to support transgender Canadian filmmakers and a member of the Pink Triangle Press advisory council. ~ this 1 4 g ~ . @bretonlikethecrackers
Hallie Seline
2
Hallie Seline is a Québec-born, Toronto-based actor, theatre-artist, and a part of the Founding Artistic Leadership of The Howland Company. For Howland: The Welkin (with Soulpepper Theatre & Crow’s Theatre), Heroes of the Fourth Turning, Prodigal, The Wolves (with Crow’s), Three Sisters (with Hart House), Casimir and Caroline, Punk Rock, 52 Pick-Up. Other Select Theatre Credits: Upcoming – Dry Streak, The Last Mayor of Rusty River (Blyth Festival); The Merchant of Venice (Shakespeare BASH’d); The Farm Show: Then & Now, Resort to Murder, The Donnellys: A Trilogy (Blyth Festival); Prairie Nurse (Lighthouse Festival); As You Like It, Twelfth Night, Macbeth, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare BASH’d). Selected Film/TV Credits: Fellow Travelers (Showtime), Everything’s Going to be Great (Lionsgate). Hallie has won a Dora Mavor Moore Award and a Toronto Theatre Critics Association Award. take rimbaud is Hallie’s Buddies debut.
Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster
3
Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster is a founding member of the collective The Howland Company, and an assistant professor at York University. She has performed with the Shaw Festival, Soulpepper, Public Recordings, Canadian Stage, Citadel Theatre, Blue Bridge Repertory, Cahoots, Native Earth, Tarragon and beyond. Selected Directing Credits include Witch (Soulpepper), Steel Magnolias (Capitol Theatre) The Orphan of Chao (Shaw Festival), Hypothetical Baby (Howland/Nightwood), Three Women of Swatow (Tarragon), The Home Project (Howland Company/Native Earth/Soulpepper), The Wolves (Howland/Crows’ Theatre), 52 Pick-Up (Howland), Everybody (York University) and Casimir and Caroline (Sheridan College).
Cameron Laurie
4
Cam is an actor who puts on plays with The Howland Company. Past Howland Credits = The Welkin, Heroes of the Fourth Turning, Prodigal, Three Sisters, Casimir & Caroline, Punk Rock. Past Credits for Other People = The Donnellys Trilogy, The Drawer Boy, Saving Graceland, The Trials of Maggie Pollock (Blyth Festival), A Little Closer (The Vault), The Merchant of Venice (Shakespeare Bash’d), This Feels Like The End (Next Stage). Cam also plays guitar and yells a little in the band Stuck Out Here.
THE CREATIVE TEAM of TAKE RIMBAUD:
Susanna Fournier
Playwright
Susanna is a playwright, director, storyteller, and educator. As a rowdy formalist suspicious of labels, her work has been called many things – “ambitious” “queer” “impossible” and sometimes even “theatre”. Her plays include: PYPER, The Empire Trilogy: The Philosopher’s Wife, The Scavenger’s Daughter, Four Sisters (Playwright’s Canada Press), take rimbaud, antigone lives*, Ghosts of My House, HEART/BODY, and Next Time I Die. Susanna was a core collaborator on Buddies in Bad Times x the red light district’s award winning, 7-part project, LULU, aspects of a femme fatale and promises she’ll never put a couch onstage unless it’s on fire. susannafournier.com
ted witzel
director
ted witzel (he/him) is a queer theatre-maker and artistic leader based in toronto / tkaròn:to (these days). primarily a director, ted is also variously a dramaturg, curator, teacher, writer, translator, designer, and performer. he has worked with theatres and cultural organizations across canada, the uk, germany, and italy (she gets around).
fusing high-octane performance, rigorous dramaturgy, filthy homosexuality, digital aesthetics, and poetic text, ted’s directing is located at the intersection between the personal and the political, and the (visceral, emotional, intellectual) frictions between them.
previous Buddies credits: artist-in-residence 2014-18 with LULU // aspects of a femme fatale, the scavenger’s daughter [2019], taylor mac’s holiday sauce (the afterparty) [2020], roberto zucco [2024], current Buddies’ artistic director.
Ting – Huan 挺歡 Christine Urquhart
Set & Costume Design
Ting’s work questions viewpoints, histories and narrative structure through form as a Design driven interrogation, the body as politics and getting audiences out of ‘black box’ mentality to be witnesses to a different kind of event.
Costume Designer for The Hobbit (Stratford); Set Designer for You, Always (Canadian Stage); Costume Designer for Witch (Soulpepper); Set and Costume Designer for Blues for an Alabama Sky (Shaw); Costume Designer for Orphan of Chao (Shaw); Set and Costume Designer for Craze (Tarragon), Set and Costume Designer for Wicked Nix (YPT).
Training: Theatre Design BA Honours Degree Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama 2011; Erasmus Art and Design exchange program Sofia Bulgaria 2009; Fine Arts and Theory BA Honours Degree Cardiff Metropolitan University 2008; Fine Arts Diploma Farnham Arts College 2006.
Awards: 6 times Dora Nominated for respective Set and Costume Design, Nominated for the Virginia and Myrtle Cooper Award for Costume Design 2025 and 2026.
Online: urquhartdesign.com / @tinghuanchristineurquhart
Dasha Plett
Sound Designer
Dasha Plett is a Winnipeg-based artist working with performance, sound, and video. She has worked with Zaiba Baig, Stratford Festival, Mammalian Diving Reflex, Frances Koncan, Waawaate Fobister, and Debbie Patterson. Dasha is also one half of We Quit Theatre, a nationally touring performance project with Gislina Patterson. Despite living in Manitoba, she was dubbed one of “10 Toronto theatre artists to watch” by Next Magazine in 2024. She is a proud member of IATSE ADC659, and a professional audio describer. Past Buddies credits include Roberto Zucco and Kainchee Lagaa + Jhooti. Visit Dasha online at princessdasha.com. Free Palestine.
Darren Shaen
Lighting Designer
Darren Shaen is a lighting designer artist mood maker based in Toronto who works in theatre and nightlife. He frequently uses alternative light sources, industrial objects, and found materials. He is inspired by quotidian beauty, analog technology, and the aesthetics of queer nightlife past, present and future.
Selected lighting designs for stage; GAPE w/ Susanna Haight and Tia Kushniruk w/ Mile Zero Dance, “pacing” (dir./choreo Susanna Haight) with Arts Orillia’s 2025 Dance & Design residency, the 2025 Rhubarb Festival, “MÀSCARA” (by Pulga Muchochoma) with Dance Immersion, the 2024 SummerWorks Festival, and “This Lament I’ll Lip-Sync Until I’m Born Again” dir./choreo Riley Sims) with Social Growl.
Selected lighting, ambience, and installations for raves/parties in Toronto’s and Hamilton’s underground party scenes; Twist, Plantasia, Natural Born Sinners, Strangers, Places (Techno for Worms), Sous Bas Spring Pop Up, The Beginning, Club Mud, and the biannual queer warehouse rave series Something For the Lovers. Darren also annually designs the Buddies in Bad Times Theatre’s Pride Festival.
Darren currently works as a head technician at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre in Toronto, Darren has had his hands inside every technical installation of buddies season over the past 4.5 years. He holds an MFA in Lighting Design from The University of British Columbia.
Nicole Eun-Ju Bell
Projection Designer
Nicole Eun-Ju Bell is a Toronto-based, queer Korean-Canadian, multidisciplinary artist with a passion for performance and technology. Among other things, she is a projection designer, XR Artist, and production manager. Her work has been presented by various Toronto-based theatre companies and has toured across North America. For Buddies: White Muscle Daddy (projection design). Other: Kim’s Convenience (Soulpepper), The Little Prince (Theatre Passe Muraille), 365 Days/365 Plays (Sunface Collective). As an associate: Detroit: Music of the Motor City (Soulpepper), The Cave (JMar Electric/Luminato)
Chala Hunter
Intimacy Coordinator
Chala Hunter is a bilingual Writer, Producer, Intimacy Coordinator and Actor, originally from Treaty 6 territory – Saskatoon, SK. She is a graduate of the National Theatre School and has performed in theatres across Canada, including Lulu: aspects of a femme fatale at Buddies, Philosopher’s Wife, and Four Sisters by Susanna Fournier; and The Supine Cobbler by Jill Connell. She is currently based in Tkaronto.
She was a writer and assistant to Showrunner Adam Pettle for NURSES (Global) and BURDEN OF TRUTH (CBC) and was an associate producer with Wango films, and a 2024 recipient of the CMPA Producer’s mentorship.
Most recently, she was the Intimacy Coordinator on Crave/HBO’s hit show Heated Rivalry, and has just wrapped production as the Intimacy Coordinator for The Body, Quinn Shephard’s new show for Netflix.
Julia Dyan
Fight Director
Julia Dyan is a Toronto-based Actor, Fight Director, Stunt Performer, Stage Combat & Acting Instructor. She is co-founder of Violence in Motion – a training school for actors (or anyone curious!) to develop their skill in Film & Stage Combat. Julia teaches Acting for Media at Centennial College in the Performing Arts program. She is a proud member of the AACE (Association of Acting Coaches and Educators). Currently, she is Stunt Performing on the hit TV show Boston Blue. Julia has a toddler who loves to party in the middle of the night.
Chanti Laliberte
Wardrobe Support
A Toronto-based craftsperson with a BFA from York University and co-owner of Awl Or Nothing Creative Inc. Chanti founded ‘Toronto Wardrobe People’ & they continue to build queer community, advocating for artists through Twerkforce Collective. Their wardrobe work has been seen onstage throughout Ontario, including Stratford Festival & Blyth Festival.
For Buddies: The Born-again Crow (BiBT/ NEPA), Speaking of Sneaking (BiBT/Groundwork Redux/Obsidian), School Girls; Or, the African Mean Girls Play (Obsidian/Nightwood/BiBT)
Elsewhere: Mahabharata (WhyNot Theatre); Maanomaa, My Brother (BBTC/Canadian Stage), Fairview (Canadian Stage); The Men In White, Prairie Nurse, Bang Bang, trace (Factory), among others.
Stay hydrated.
Troy Taylor
Stage Manager
Troy works as a Stage Manager in Toronto for dance, theatre, and live events. In the past, he’s worked for Soulpepper Theatre, The National Ballet of Canada, Volleyball World, Yonge Street Theatricals, Fall for Dance North, Canadian Stage, Ross Petty Productions, The Shaw Festival, Dance Ontario, Nightwood Theatre, Tarragon Theatre, Mirvish, Human Body Expression, and The Stratford Festival. When not at work, he likes to spend his time at the park with his dog Jupiter, and partner Craig.
Jenna Borsato
Apprentice Stage Manager
Jenna is excited to be making her Howland/Buddies debut. And! She is super grateful to be doing what brings her so much joy. APSM Credits: After the Rain (Musical Stage Co./Tarragon + NAC); Bremen Town (Tarragon). Selected SM Credits: Three Men on a Bike (GFT); Fractals of Possibilities (Zoe Kwan); Anthony’s Journey (TPM/Anthony’s Journey Co.); Towards Rebirth (Shakespeare in the Ruff). Outside of Theatre, Jenna has a passion for music, eating + cooking delicious food, reading, and wandering around new neighbourhoods. A shoutout to her family and friends for their support, always. And a very special shoutout to her love, Cass, for her unwavering encouragement, love and support.
The Howland Company 