Opening Night Party

The year is 2001…Britney and Justin are wearing matching denim to the AMA’s…iPods are hitting the market…Kidz Bop is producing their first studio album…and Anthony Furey is planting the seeds for the first ever Paprika Theatre Festival! Flash forward to today, Britney and Justin have called it quits, Apple has completely taken over electronics, Kidz Bop is producing their 40th album (like how!?), and the Paprika Theatre Festival is still growing and supporting more emerging artists than ever before!

On June 4 2021, we invite you to join us on Gather.Town to look back at Paprika’s incredible 20 year history. Gather.Town is an online meeting platform, where you can walk around our virtual space and interact with other guests using your own personalized avatar. We will be showcasing photos of past festivals throughout the space and we are so excited to be inviting back Paprika Alumni to share short readings of their work! And what kind of Opening Night Party would it be without a rockin’ dance floor? We’ve teamed up with DJ Foot-to-Face to spin all the classic throwbacks and keep the party bumping all night long (or at least until 10pm)!

So put on your best popcorn shirt, pull up your low-rise jeans, and join us for a celebration of community, history, and theatre!

Reading of Savannah Lavallee’s Work

Performer

Zaiba Baig (they/them) is a queer, trans-feminine, Muslim playwright, performer and workshop facilitator. Zaiba’s first play, Acha Bacha, had its world premiere in 2018 and was recently named a finalist for the Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ2S+ Emerging Writers. Zaiba is a core team member at community-based organizations such as Story Planet and Paprika Festival, where they develop and facilitate workshops for youth in under-resourced neighbourhoods in Toronto focused on creative writing and literacy (Story Planet), and oversee the playwrights unit for young writers (Paprika). Zaiba is the co-creator and lead of the Peabody Award-winning television series Sort Of.

Performance: A Perfect Bowl of Pho

COMPOSER/Creator

Nam Nguyen is a Toronto-ish playwright & librettist of Vietnamese descent. He was Part of Paprika’s Productions Program (say that five times fast) in 2018 with his musical “A Perfect Bowl of Pho”, which kicked off a chain of events including the upcoming publication of “Pho” by Playwrights Canada Press as well as the introduction of the invasive Asian long-horned beetle to the Ontario ecosystem. You win some, you lose some.

PERFORMER

Victoria Ngai is not an actor, she is just a teaching candidate who can carry a decent tune trying her best.

Wilfred Moeschter

PERFORMER

Wilfred Moeschter is a Toronto-based (read: actually from Oakville) composer for stage and screen, and the composer for A Perfect Bowl of Pho (2018 Paprika Festival). He is currently in North Carolina completing his M.F.A. in Film Music Composition at UNCSA, but he promises that he still likes theatre. His biggest secret is that he meant to grow his hair out all along, and the pandemic is just an excuse for if you don’t like it. You can connect with Wilfred online: @wilfredmoeschter

Wilfred Moeschter

Mitchell’s Reading

Mitchell Cushman

Playwright

Mitchell Cushman is a director, playwright, arts educator and founding Artistic Director of Outside the March, Canada’s leading immersive theatre company. His work has been seen on stages as large as the Royal Alexander Theatre and The Stratford Festival, in spaces as intimate as living rooms, and in locales as far flung as London, New York, Finland and Japan. By expanding the canvas on which theatrical storytelling takes place, his work has brought underused Toronto spaces into the public eye and has welcomed audiences who don’t normally find themselves at the theatre. His productions have invited audiences to play in a Parkdale kindergarten classroom, parade with Queen Elizabeth along the Danforth, venture to Roncesvalles on an EMS call, weather the apocalypse in an abandoned Leslieville movie theatre, infuse a Davisville funeral home with love, unlock mysteries in a beloved Annex VHS video store, and place a call to an eccentric private investigator service.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, Mitchell has been exploring new possibilities for live performance, co-creating projects like internationally-acclaimed telephonic adventure The Ministry of Mundane Mysteries (OtM), and the “Grand Act of Theatre” film Something Bubbled, Something Blue (NAC/TIFT/OtM), which now has over 1 million views.

“Announcer”

Roxhanne is an emerging Toronto playwright and performer. A strong proponent of queer and disabled theatre, she holds an HBA in Theatre and Drama Studies from U of T and Sheridan College, and has trained with Nightwood Theatre and the Fringe TENT Program. Her first script, Jane Doe, was nominated for a 2019 PGC Robert Beardsley Award and developed as a part of Ergo Pink Fest 2021. Recent performance credits include: Alexander Pantages/Ensemble in Belle Darling Klondike Queen (Alumnae Theatre); Officer Barrell in Urinetown (We Are Here Productions); Zara in The Millionaire, Tessa in The Gondoliers (North Toronto Players).

“Eric”

Brady Madsen is a queer emerging theatre artist based in Toronto. Since graduating from the University of Windsor’s BFA Acting program, he has produced with the Paprika Festival; interned with Theatre Gargantua; and taught at Ovation! Performing Arts Academy. Selected acting credits include Twelfth Night with the Prince Edward County Festival Players; Mammoth with the Paprika Festival and India’s Thespo; and Commedia Noir with Windsor’s Tall Tale Theatre. Currently he performs for Pirate Life Toronto, doing children’s theatre shows on a pirate ship! He is also writing a play under the guidance of Start the Riot Theatre. When not working in theatre, Brady serves as a member of the Canadian Naval Reserves.

“Jacob”

Taha Arshad is an Indian/Pakistani Toronto-based actor/singer, and is so very delighted to be given the opportunity to perform again after a very long break. Outside of the theatre, Taha works as a Research Coordinator at SickKids Hospital in the Department of Psychiatry, so between his love of theatre and science, he’s pretty much spending 100% of his time analyzing people! Special thanks to the organizers of the Paprika Festival for providing artists with opportunities during this tumultuous time, and for getting great new work out there!

Kemi’s Performance

Kemi King

Kemi King (she/her) is a writer, director, performance artist and divisor. Some of her work has been produced by Obsidian, and Canadian Stage. She has created and performed works with Soulpepper Theatre and as a part of the Paprika Festival. She is one of the co-founders and artistic director of YIKES a Theatre Company founded in her second year of undergrad. Kemi is always excited for a learning opportunity with different types of artists and collaborators. Kemi is passionate about the arts and the way it can be used to help shape social consciousness.

DJ

DJ Foot-to-Face

DJ Foot-to-Face is a Toronto-based artist and selector of tracks in favour of the danceable, emotional, playful, and punk-spirited, with special preference for electro-pop, house, new wave, and disco, as well as swing and big band. By day, she’s an essential worker helping to deliver local vegetables, and by night, you can catch her on Twitch streaming her weekly listening party “Dearly Beloved” on Thursdays at 2-3pm EST and her monthly dance party “Make Ur Own Dancefloor” on the last Saturday of every month at 8:30-10pm EST. Instagram: @djfoottoface

DJ Foot-to-Face