Yvette Nolan (Algonquin) is a playwright, director, and dramaturg. Plays include Annie Mae’s Movement, The Birds (a modern adaptation of Aristophanes’ comedy), The Unplugging, Gabriel Dumont’s Wild West Show (co-writer), the libretto Shanawdithit, and the short film A Common Experience (w. Shane Belcourt).  Directing credits include Reasonable Doubt (Persephone), The Penelopiad (Ferre Play), Shanawdithit (w. Michael Mori, Tapestry Opera), Bearing (w. Michael Greyeyes, Signal Theatre at Luminato), Nôhkom by Michael Greyeyes, Salt Baby by Falen Johnson (Globe), Map of the Land, Map of the Stars (w. Michelle Olson), Café Daughter by Kenneth T Williams, Justice by Leonard Linklater (Gwaandak), Death of a Chief, A Very Polite Genocide by Melanie J. Murray, Marie Clements’ Tombs of the Vanishing Indian  and The Unnatural and Accidental Women (Native Earth), The Ecstasy of Rita Joe (Western Canada Theatre/National Arts Centre), The Only Good Indian... , The Triple Truth (Turtle Gals). As a dramaturg, she works across Turtle Island on projects including Queen Seraphina and the Land of Vertebraat by Adam Pottle, Many Fires by Charlie Peters, Ecstasy (film) by Cara Mumford, Little Badger and the Fire Spirit by Maria Campbell, Confluence by Raven Spirit Dance in Vancouver. From 2003-2011, she served as Artistic Director of Native Earth Performing Arts. Her book Medicine Shows about Indigenous theatre in Canada was published by Playwrights Canada Press in 2015, and Performing Indigeneity, which she co-edited with Ric Knowles, in 2016. She is currently pursuing her Masters in Public Policy at Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy. 

Donna-Michelle St. Bernard aka Belladonna the Blest is an emcee, playwright and agitator. Her main body of work, the 54ology, includes: Cake, Sound of the Beast, A Man A Fish, Salome’s Clothes, Dark Love, Gas Girls, Give It Up, The Smell of Horses, Diggers and The First Stone.  Other offerings include TYA (Reaching For Starlight, Geordie Productions) libretti (Oubliette, Forbidden and Nucleosynthesis, Tapestry Opera) collaborative works (They Say He Fell with Nir Bareket for Pandemic Theatre, The House You Build with Circle of Voices for Saskatchewan Native Theatre Company) and weird reflections (Thoughts Residency, Spiderwebshow).  DM is currently the emcee in residence at Theatre Passe Muraille, associate artist at lemonTree Creations, artistic director of New Harlem Productions, coordinator of the AD HOC Assembly, and of play development at Nightwood Theatre and Theatre Aquarius. Donna-Michelle St. Bernard aka Belladonna the Blest is an emcee, playwright and agitator.  She is artistic director of New Harlem Productions and creator of the 54ology.  (photo by Graham Isador)